Ernst Bamberg and his colleagues wanted to understand something. They began studying organisms—algae—that possess an interesting opsin gene, and a question arose.

Research on the single-celled freshwater alga *Chlamydomonas reinhardtii* has shown that a gene it carries could be a major discovery for humanity. These single-celled organisms possess light-sensing proteins known as channelrhodopsins. They conducted research on the algae to understand how this could be utilized.