Nobel Prize win for Sense of touch and heat research

By James Gallagher
Health and science correspondent
Published: 4 October

Scientists who discovered how our bodies feel the warmth of the sun or the hug of a loved one have won the Nobel Prize.

David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian, from the US, share the 2021 prize in Medicine or Physiology for their work on sensing touch and temperature.
They unlocked how our bodies convert physical sensations into electrical messages in the nervous system.

Their findings could lead to new ways of treating pain. Heat, cold and touch are crucial for experiencing the world around us and for our own survival. But how our bodies actually do it had been one of the great mysteries of biology.

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Previous winners

• 2020 - Michael Houghton, Harvey Alter and Charles Rice for the discovery of the virus Hepatitis C.
  
• 2019 - Sir Peter Ratcliffe, William Kaelin and Gregg Semenza for discovered how cells sense and adapt to oxygen levels
• 2018 - James P Allison and Tasuku Honjo for discovering how to fight cancer using the body's immune system
• 2017- Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young for unravelling how bodies keep a circadian rhythm or body clock
• 2016 - Yoshinori Ohsumi for discovering how cells remain healthy by recycling waste
• 2015 - William C Campbell, Satoshi Ōmura and Youyou Tu for anti-parasite drug discoveries
  

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Sense of touch and heat research wins Nobel Prize