The American Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for 2021 will be awarded jointly to two American molecular biologists, David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian, for their discovery of temperature and tactile receptors. Announced to the Stockholm Carolina Institute. The findings awarded by the institute made it possible to understand how heat, cold and mechanical forces can stimulate nerve impulses that allow people to perceive and adapt to the world around them.
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Recent Nobel Prize winners have been involved in the groundbreaking discovery of TRPV1, TRPM8 and Piezo channels. Specifically, New York native Julius used capsaicin, a pungent substance from chili peppers, to identify a sensor in the nerve endings that respond to heat in the skin.
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Born in Lebanon, Patapoutian has discovered a new type of sensor in pressure-sensitive cells that responds to mechanical stimuli in the skin and internal organs.
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According to the Carolina Institute, the findings of both scientists are used to develop treatments for many diseases, including chronic pain.
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Last year, Americans Harvey Alter and Charles Rice and Briton Michael Houghton won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for discoveries that helped identify the hepatitis C virus. Her youngest laureate was Frederick Banting of Canada in 1923 at the age of 32, who received her for her discovery of insulin. The oldest winner of this award at the age of 87 was the American Francis Peyton Rous, who was awarded in 1966 for cancer research.
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Prior to today’s announcement of the new laureates, the media speculated that the prize for medicine could be awarded to scientists who contributed to the research of so-called covid-19 mRNA vaccines and thus to the very rapid development of covid-19 vaccines.
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The most important award in the field of medicine is subsidized by ten million Swedish crowns (approximately 25 million Czech crowns). On Tuesday, it will be announced who will win the prize for physics, on Wednesday for chemistry, on Thursday for literature. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. Lastly, the awards for economics are announced every year, the winners of which will be announced on Monday, October 11. The Nobel Prize ceremony will take place on December 10, the anniversary of the death of the Swedish scientist and founder Alfred Nobel.
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