By James Gallagher Health and science correspondent
Scientists who discovered how our bodies feel the warmth of the sun or the hug of a loved one have won the Nobel Prize.
David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian, from the US, share the 2021 prize for Medicine or Physiology for their work on sensing touch and temperature.
They unpicked how our bodies convert physical sensations into electrical messages in the nervous system.
Their findings could lead to new ways of treating pain.
Thomas Perlman, from the Nobel Prize Committee, said “It was a very important and profound discovery”.
Prof David Julius’s breakthrough, at the University of California, San Francisco, came from investigating the burning pain we feel from eating a hot chilli pepper.
He experimented with the source of a chilli’s heat – the chemical capsaicin.
He discovered the specific type of receptor (a part of our cells that detect the world around them) that responded to capsaicin.
Further tests showed the receptor was responding to heat and kicked in at “painful” temperatures. This is what happens, for example, if you burn your hand on a cup of coffee.
The discovery led to a flurry of other temperature-sensors being discovered. Prof Julius and Prof Ardem Patapoutian found one that could detect cold.
Meanwhile, Prof Pataoutian, working at the Scripps Research institute, was also poking cells in a dish.
Those experiments led to the discovery of a different type of receptor that was activated in response to mechanical force or touch.
Just in! New medicine laureate Ardem Patapoutian and his son Luca, watching the #NobelPrize press conference shortly after finding out the happy news. Stay tuned for our interview with Patapoutian coming up soon! Photographer: Nancy Hong pic.twitter.com/44OCpRSTki
The Prize Committee said their work had “allowed us to understand how heat, cold and mechanical force can initiate the nerve impulses that allow us to perceive and adapt to the world around us.”
It added: “This knowledge is being used to develop treatments for a wide range of disease conditions, including chronic pain.”
The pair will share the 10m Swedish kronor (£845,000) prize.
