US duo Julius and Patapoutian win Nobel Medicine Prize for heat and touch work

Gulf Today Report

American scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian won the Nobel Medicine Prize for discoveries on receptors for temperature and touch, , the award-giving body said on Monday.

"The groundbreaking discoveries... by this year's Nobel Prize laureates have allowed us to understand how heat, cold and mechanical force can initiate the nerve impulses that allow us to perceive and adapt to the world," the Nobel jury said.

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"In our daily lives we take these sensations for granted, but how are nerve impulses initiated so that temperature and pressure can be perceived? This question has been solved by this year's Nobel Prize laureates."

The award-giving body announces the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in Stockholm, Sweden. AFP

Their groundbreaking discoveries "have allowed us to understand how heat, cold and mechanical force can initiate the nerve impulses that allow us to perceive and adapt to the world around us," it said.

"This knowledge is being used to develop treatments for a wide range of disease conditions, including chronic pain."

The more than century-old prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and is worth 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.15 million).

Julius, a professor at the University of California in San Francisco and Patapoutian, a professor at Scripps Research in California, will share the Nobel Prize cheque for 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.1 million, one million euros).

The prizes, for achievements in science, literature and peace, were created and funded in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel. They have been awarded since 1901, with the economics prize first handed out in 1969.