Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to scientists who discovered how our bodies sense heat and touch

Scientists’ discoveries have unlocked one of nature’s mysteries by explaining the molecular basis for sensing heat, cold and mechanical force, the Nobel Assembly said on Monday. It said their work laid the foundation for research into treatments for a range of diseases, including chronic pain.

Dr. Julius was born in 1955 in New York and is now a professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Patapoutian was born in 1967 in Beirut. He moved to the US in his youth and is currently a professor at Scripps Research, La Jolla, Calif.

In the late 1990s, Dr. Julius used capsaicin, a compound that causes irritation from chili peppers, to identify a sensor in the nerve endings of the skin that respond to heat. In separate research, Dr. Patapoutian later discovered new sensors using pressure-sensitive cells that respond to touch in the skin and internal organs.

The work of both scientists involved identifying specific genes involved in heat or touch. By finding out what those genes did in cells, they discovered the molecular basis for the sensations of heat or touch.

Dr. Julius discovered that the gene that allows the body to sense capsaicin instructs nerve cells to form a so-called ion channel that opens in response to heat, releasing electrically charged particles called ions and causing pain to the brain. sends the message. . That receptor was later named TRPV1.

That finding, published in a 1997 paper, sparked a wave of research by large drugmakers, hoping that blocking the TRPV1 receptor could lead to a treatment for chronic pain. This work stalled as the researchers struggled to show that their compounds worked, and became concerned that some candidate drugs might cause an increase in body temperature.

Martin Gunthorpe, involved in TRPV1 research at GlaxoSmithKline plc, said the work paved the way for the discovery of other ion channels, some of which are currently under investigation for pain and other diseases, and now runs a consulting company specializing in medicines. . target ion channel.

One of those channels was a cold-sensing receptor called TRPM8, which was activated by Drs. Using menthol, Julius and Ardem veiled independently of each other.

Dr. Patpoutian’s later work on touch revealed two ion channels, named piezo1 and piezo2, that open in response to pressure. He later showed that Piezo 2 played an important role in how it sensed body position and motion.

“I was shocked and of course I wasn’t completely in control, so I just woke up,” said Dr. Patapoutian. The Nobel Assembly, based in Stockholm, Sweden, initially could not reach Dr Patpoutian early Monday because he switched his phone to “do not disturb” mode overnight. Instead, it reached his 94-year-old father, who called Dr. Patapoutian. “Your contacts may still bother you,” he said.

While the work of the two scientists largely overlap, they made their discoveries independently of each other. “We had a healthy competition in the early years, when we were both working on temperature sensing,” said Dr. Patapoutian. “It’s always nice to work and compete with great scientists and David is definitely one of them.”

Dr. Patapoutian said that, in his later work on pressure, a significant breakthrough came when his team began studying cells in test tubes rather than in the body. In this way, they were able to “switch off” individual candidate genes to identify which ones were responsible for responding to pressure.

He said work is being done to find molecules that block piezo channels because these could form the basis of drugs for different types of pain.

Dr. Julius could not immediately be contacted for comment. The Nobel Assembly said it had reached both scientists before the announcement and tweeted a photo of Dr Julius with his wife celebrating the news.

This story has been published without modification to the text from a wire agency feed