STOCKHOLM: David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian from the United States of America (USA) took home the Nobel Prize in Medicine 2021 for unearthing the existence of specific temperature and pressure-sensitive skin receptors, which could lead to the innovations of new analgesics in the market.
“It was an independent study that has helped show how exactly heat and touch translate into nerve impulses through the human body which influences how we absorb and discern our surroundings.” the Nobel Assembly stated.
“This knowledge is being utilised to expand treatments for a spectrum of diseases, like chronic ailments and pain syndromes,” Julius emphasised.
He is attributed for discovering the biological matrix and gene that converts a physical impact on our skin into an electric nerve impulse.
Patapoutian works as a professor at Scripps Research, La Jolla, California, and Julius is tenured at the University of California, San Francisco (UCFS).
The honoured Nobel prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace, were created in the name of the inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel in 1901. However, the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine often goes a little understated than the Peace or Literature categories.