David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian have been awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch, announced by the Nobel Committee in Stockholm.
In a year in which the world has been battling the deadly COVID-19, many expected the prize to go at least to one of the vaccine makers. However, it was awarded to the two scientists who were able to “unlock one of the secrets of nature.”
David Julius is a psychologist at the University of California in San Francisco, while Ardem Patapoutian is a neuroscientist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California.
With a team of co-workers, Julius created a library containing millions of DNA fragments that are expressed in sensory neurons in response to pain, heat and touch.
On the other hand, Patapoutian is credited for finding the cellular mechanism and the underlying gene that translates a mechanical force on our skin into an electrical nerve signal.
Both professors were honoured for their discovery of receptors in the skin that sense heat, cold and touch.
“Our ability to sense heat, cold and touch is essential for survival and underpins our interaction with the world around us,” stated the Nobel Committee in a news release.
Together, the two American scientists could solve the question of “how nerve impulses are initiated so that temperature and pressure can be perceived,” explaining how an individual’s nervous system senses heat, cold and mechanical stimuli.
The committee elaborated on the importance of this research writing: “The mechanisms underlying our senses have triggered our curiosity for thousands of years, for example, how light is detected by the eyes, how sound waves affect our inner ears, and how different chemical compounds interact with receptors in our nose and mouth generating smell and taste,”
2021 prize winners were awarded a cash prize worth 10m Swedish kronor (about €980,000) and a Nobel Medal and a range of other trinkets.
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