Nobel Prize for Medicine to two molecular biologists

The announcement of this year’s Nobel Prize winners began on Monday in Stockholm. The decision for the Nobel Prize in Medicine has been made.

Stockholm – The Nobel Prize for Medicine this year goes to David Julius (USA) and the Lebanon-born researcher Ardem Patapoutian for their discovery of receptors for temperature and touch in the body. The Karolinska Institute announced on Monday in Stockholm.

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The knowledge is used to develop treatments for a range of diseases, including chronic pain.

The pioneering discoveries made by this year’s Nobel Prize winners “have enabled us to understand how heat, cold and mechanical forces trigger the nerve impulses that enable us to perceive and adapt to the world around us,” the committee said. The researchers used pressure-sensitive cells to discover a new class of sensors that respond to mechanical stimuli in the skin and internal organs.

David Julius used capsaicin, a spicy compound made from chili peppers that causes a burning sensation, to identify a sensor in the skin’s nerve endings that is responsive to heat.

Using pressure-sensitive cells, Ardem Patapoutian discovered a new class of sensors that respond to mechanical stimuli in the skin and internal organs. He was born in Beirut and came to Los Angeles as a teenager, currently doing research at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California.

The most important award for medical professionals this year is endowed with ten million Swedish crowns (around 980,000 euros).

Since 1901, 222 people have received the Nobel Prize for Medicine, including 12 women. The first went to the German bacteriologist Emil Adolf von Behring for the discovery of a therapy against diphtheria. In 1995, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard was the first and so far only German woman to receive this award.

Last year Harvey J. Alter (USA), Michael Houghton (Great Britain) and Charles M. Rice (USA) received the award. They made a major contribution to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus.

The Nobel Prize series began with the Medicine Prize. The winners of the physics and chemistry prizes will be named on Tuesday and Wednesday. The announcements for the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize will follow on Thursday and Friday. The series ends on the following Monday, October 11th, with the so-called Nobel Prize for Economics donated by the Swedish Reichsbank.

The ceremonial awarding of all awards traditionally takes place on December 10th, the anniversary of the death of the prize donor Alfred Nobel.

The Right Livelihood Foundation announced the winners of this year’s Alternative Nobel Prizes last Wednesday. dpa