Noble Prize for Medicine
- October 5, 2021
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Noble Prize for Medicine
Subject – Science and Tech
Context – Nobel for deciphering the science of touch
Concept –
- David Julius and ArdemPatapoutian, working independently in the United States, made a series of discoveries in the late 1990s and early 2000s to figure out the touch detectors in our body and the mechanism through which they communicate with the nervous system to identify and respond to a particular touch.
- For their ground-breaking research, which is still continuing, 66-year-old Julius and 54-year-old Patapoutian were declared joint winners of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology.
- Julius and Patapoutian have been awarded the prize “for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch”.
- Simply put, they discovered the molecular sensors in the human body that are sensitive to heat, and to mechanical pressure, and make us “feel” hot or cold, or the touch of a sharp object on our skin.
- Artificial sensors are familiar in today’s world. A thermometer is a very common temperature sensor.
- Similarly, in the human body, all the molecules do not sense heat when they are exposed to it. Only very specific proteins do, and it is their job to relay this signal to the nervous system, which then triggers an appropriate response. Scientists knew that such sensors must exist, but were not able to identify them until Julius discovered the first heat receptor.
- The human ability to sense heat, or cold, and pressure is not very different from the working of the many detectors that we are familiar with.
- A smoke detector, for example, sends off an alarm when it senses smoke beyond a certain threshold.
- Similarly, when something hot, or cold, touches the body, the heat receptors enable the passage of some specific chemicals, like calcium ions, through the membrane of nerve cells.
- It’s like a gate that opens up on a very specific request. The entry of the chemical inside the cell causes a small change in electrical voltage, which is picked up by the nervous system.
- These receptors were sensitive not just to external touch, but could detect temperature or pressure changes inside the body as well.
- Julius discovered TRPV1, a heat-sensing receptor, while Patapoutian discovered two mechanosensitive ion channels known as the Piezo channels.