On October 4, the first Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology was announced, and American scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian were awarded the prize for discovering "temperature and tactile receptors."
Professor Randy Schekman, Julius' co-mentor at the University of California, Berkeley, told first financial reporters after the Nobel Prize was announced: "David (Julius) sent me a message and I congratulated him. I think he's now living on adrenaline outside of Cloud Nine. ”
He was interested in how hallucinogens work
Julius is a graduate student with Schekman and his colleagues at The University of Berkeley, biochemist and cytologist Jeremy Thorner. Schekman was the recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology; Thorner is known for his outstanding work on biological signal transduction mechanisms.
A graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, Julius later became a postdoc at Columbia University. He said he was interested in how magic mushrooms and LSDs worked, and from a broader field, Julius was also interested in how things in nature interact with human receptors.
Schekman said he was thrilled but not surprised by the student's award. "David's work has won countless awards, and winning the Nobel Prize is almost inevitable." He told the first financial reporter.
In 2020, Julius and Pattaptian won the Kavli Neuroscience Prize, which was approached by the Norwegian government, for their pioneering discovery of proteins that help the body perceive stress.
The search for the nature of things often leads to the most remarkable discoveries. How do we perceive the environment? This is one of the deepest questions about human existence.
For thousands of years, human sensory mechanisms have sparked our curiosity, such as how the eye detects light, how sound waves affect our inner ears, and how different compounds interact with receptors in our noses and mouths to produce a sense of smell and taste.
The 17th-century French philosopher René descartes envisioned pathways that connect different parts of the skin with the brain. This way, when the fire touches the foot, it sends a signal to the brain. Subsequent studies found that sensory neurons record changes in our environment.
In 1944 Joseph Erlanger and Herbert Gasser were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering different types of sensory nerve fibers that respond to different stimuli. But a fundamental question remains: How do temperature and mechanical stimulation translate into electrical impulses in the nervous system?
Julius and Pattapultian's work is the first to teach humans how hot and cold and mechanical forces activate nerve impulses, allowing us to perceive and adapt to the world around us. Their work has also inspired in-depth research into therapies for a variety of diseases, including chronic pain.
Dig into areas that people don't know about
Patapurian was initially interested in the nervous system and later preferred to study touch and pain for the simple reason that it was easier to study pain than the brain itself. But the question of how sensory neurons receive mechanical forces such as pressure and temperature is not well understood. "When you find an area where people don't know much about it, it's a great opportunity to dig deeper." Patapurian said.
Julius argues that no sensory system is more important to life than pain, but almost no one really understands the mechanisms of pain. So his lab began studying the effects of a variety of unpleasant natural substances, such as toxins for tarantulas and coral snakes, capsaicin in peppers, and the chemicals that cause the pungentness of horseradish and mustard.
And Julius himself loved to eat canned Havana peppers, but that didn't mean he could eat a lot. "I think anything should be done in moderation." Julius said.
Most scientists agree that the results of this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology are well deserved. Hu Ji, associate professor of the School of Life Science and Technology of ShanghaiTech University, told the first financial reporter: "The two scientists analyzed the molecular mechanism at the bottom of the sensory system, that is, the external physical quantities are converted into bioenergical information, such as the change in temperature into the change of membrane current, and this conversion process corresponds to many receptor proteins, which are the most basic things in biology." ”
Professor Michael Levitt, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, told first financial reporters: "It is very worthwhile for the discoverer of the human perception mechanism to win the Nobel Prize, and this field is a good interpretation of the purpose of the Nobel Prize, that is, to award some very important but easily overlooked basic scientific research, and these studies stand the test of time and prove correct through practice." ”
Levitte said both of this year's winners are very young, especially Pataptien. He also gave his opinion that MRA did not win the award. "The call for the MNA vaccine this year is high, but I think it is expected that the MNA will not win the award, because the technology is still very new, and the Nobel Prize will rarely be awarded to scientific research that has not yet been tested by time." He told the first financial reporter, "Even if it is last year's award-winning CRISPR gene editing technology, we think the timing of the award is a bit premature." ”
Ge Junbo, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in a public academic speech on October 5 that the newly announced Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology said: "This year's award is a seemingly inconspicuous mechanism, but just like the Speech "Appeal for Pure Science" made by american physicist Henry Rowland more than a hundred years ago, the Nobel Prize also reminds us of the importance of basic scientific research." ”