According to the Nobel Committee, “their discoveries made it possible to understand heat, cold and mechanical force that can initiate nerve impulses that allow us to perceive and adapt to the world.”
LATEST NEWS:
“This knowledge is being used to develop treatments for a wide range of diseases, including chronic pain,” adds the Nobel Committee.
Scientists working at centers in California have discovered a thermal sensation mechanism with pores in the brain that trigger pain sensations and protective motor reflexes.
“Our ability to feel warmth, cold, and touch is essential to survival and is at the heart of our interactions with the world around us. In everyday life, we take these sensations for granted, but how are nerve impulses excited so that we can feel the temperature and pressure? This issue has been resolved by this year’s Nobel laureates, ”says the Nobel Prize Awarding Committee.
David Julius, a 65-year-old professor at the University of California, used capsaicin, the active ingredient in pepper that makes it hot, causing a burning sensation, to identify a sensor in the nerve endings of the skin that reacts to heat.
Ardem Pataputyan was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1967, but moved to the United States as a young man and now works as a scientist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. He used pressure-sensitive cells to discover a new class of sensors that respond to mechanical stimuli in the skin and organs.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to three scientists for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus.
History of the Nobel Prizes
Alfred Nobel was the Swedish scientist and industrialist responsible for the Nobel Prize Initiative, which recognizes individuals or institutions for their discoveries or outstanding contributions to various fields.
In 1985, a year before his death, Alfred Nobel defined this initiative in his will.
According to the terms of the will, about SEK 31.5 million, which is today the equivalent of SEK 2.2 billion (€ 203 million), was allocated to a kind of fund, the share of which was redistributed annually “among those who have provided the greatest services to humanity during the year. “.
The will stipulated that the interest on the invested capital would be distributed between the author of the most important discovery or invention of the year in the field of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, as well as the most outstanding literary work inspired by idealists.
The last part can be attributed to the person who, to a greater or greater extent, contributed to the “rapprochement of peoples.”
The awards ceremony is held annually on December 10, on the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel.
