The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced on Monday.
"David Julius utilized capsaicin, a pungent compound from chili peppers that induces a burning sensation, to identify a sensor in the nerve endings of the skin that responds to heat. Ardem Patapoutian used pressure-sensitive cells to discover a novel class of sensors that respond to mechanical stimuli in the skin and internal organs. These breakthrough discoveries launched intense research activities leading to a rapid increase in our understanding of how our nervous system senses heat, cold, and mechanical stimuli," the assembly explained.
Julius discovered the TRPV1 molecule, which helps study cells' reaction to high temperatures. Julius and Patapoutian discovered, independently of each other, the molecule TRPM8, which helps study cells' reaction to low temperatures.
The discoveries of temperature and pressure sensitive receptors open the door for scientists to glimpse the mechanism of converting temperature and mechanical stimuli into electrical impulses in the nervous system.
TRP-receptor genes could be built inside a neuron and then activated via high temperatures, Anton Chugunov, a researcher with Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of bioorganic chemistry, told Sputnik.
"Basically, you could take over, control the nerve cells," Chugunov, who heads a group of in silico analysis of membrane protein structure, said.
Control over these cells can help treat many neurological conditions that have been defying treatment so far, the researcher added.
