Karl Deisseroth , a professor of bioengineering, psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University , and Xiaoliang Sunney Xie , a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University are the 2015 recipients. Deisseroth, a medical investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, developed technology known as optogenetics that is used in brain research to understand psychiatric diseases and other conditions including Parkinson's disease, addiction and chronic pain.