The 2021 Nobel Prize for Medicine will have nothing to do with the coronavirus vaccine, as one would expect. The prize was awarded on Monday to the American David Julius and the American of Lebanese-Armenian origin Ardem Patapoutian for their discoveries on how the nervous system senses temperature and touch it. Their “revolutionary discoveries” made it possible “to understand how heat, cold and mechanical force can initiate the nerve impulses which allow us to perceive and adapt to the world”, indicated the Nobel jury in Stockholm.
David Julius, 65, a professor at the University of California, used capsaicin, an active component in chili peppers that causes a burning sensation, to identify a sensor in nerve endings in the skin that responds to heat. Ardem Patapoutian, a professor at Scripps Research in California, born in 1967, for his part used pressure-sensitive cells to discover a new class of sensors that respond to mechanical stimuli in the skin and internal organs.
The Nobel season continues in Stockholm on Tuesday with physics, Wednesday with chemistry, before the long-awaited literature prizes on Thursday and peace on Friday, the only award given in Oslo this year due to the health crisis. The most recent economy price closes the vintage next Monday.