Explained | The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The story so far: The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was jointly awarded to David Julius, 66, at the University of California, San Francisco, and Ardem Patapoutian, 54, at Scripps Research, La Jolla, California, “for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch”. They found one in a novel ion channel protein, later called TRPV1, where TRP stands for transient receptor potential, and VR1 is vanilloid receptor1. Several other TRP channels were found, and this ion channel could be activated by various chemical substances, as well as by cold and heat in a way that differs between mammalian species. Following an approach similar to that of Professor Julius, they identified 72 potential genes that could encode an ion channel receptor and trigger sensitivity to mechanical force, and it emerged that one of them coded for a novel ion channel protein, called Piezo1.