Botond Roska and José-Alain Sahel receive António Champalimaud Vision Award

Botond Roska and José-Alain Sahel have been awarded the 2026 António Champalimaud Vision Award, the world’s largest prize in the field of vision and ophthalmology, valued at EUR 1 million.

The award recognizes over two decades of collaborative research focused on understanding vision mechanisms and developing therapies for vision loss. Their work has been instrumental in advancing optogenetic therapies, which aim to restore visual function by making surviving retinal cells responsive to light after natural photoreceptors are lost to disease.

Roska, a neuroscientist and founding director of the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB), has focused on retinal function and cell-specific therapies. Sahel, an ophthalmologist and clinician-scientist at the University of Pittsburgh, has pioneered approaches in gene therapy, neuroprotection, and vision restoration. In 2021, their collaborative research indicated that optogenetic approaches could partially restore vision in patients with retinitis pigmentosa.