Nordic Life Science 1
“For example, we have found that red blood cells
In his Nobel lecture “How do you feel? The molecules that sense touch”, Patapoutian described how seeking the answer to one fundamental question led him to a very complicated sense and many new questions. “If you really start digging deep into touch, it’s so different than the rest of the senses. There’s so many modalities to it. There’s different physical forces we sense, like temperature and mechanical force. There’s itch. There’s this spectrum of pleasant touch to noxious to painful,” he said in an interview with Brian Resnick, Vox, October 6 2021. “If you put on top of that proprioception and internal organ sensation, it’s a very complicated sense that we don’t really understand. There’s no totally, well-agreed terminology even to describe clearly what we mean by touch and somatosensation.” Somatosensation is often described as the sense at the center of the ability to feel our body surface and internal organs. Somatosensation includes touch (mechanical and thermal), pain (mechanical, thermal and chemical), and proprioception (sense of self, the location and movement of our body). The discoveries of pressure- and temperature-sensitive ion channels have led to major research area advances. Today, we have a better understanding of how heat, cold and mechanical force can initiate the nerve impulses that allow us to perceive and adapt to the world around us. The discoveries have also led to many new questions and ongoing research is focusing on clarifying further the receptors’ functions in different physiological processes. can sense pressure and adjust their volume. Also, in clinical settings when you have too much of this sense you can actually have dehydrated red blood cells that are protective against malaria. We also have found that in immune cells this protein regulates things like how much iron there is in your blood. Nobody ever could have thought that pressure sensing is related to these processes,” said Patapoutian in the Nobel Media interview. P iezo1 and Piezo2 channels have also been shown to regulate respiration and urinary bladder control. They may also be involved in tracking how much the stomach stretches during a meal, and how much food passes through the intestines during digestion, described Patapoutian in his Nobel lecture. TRPV1 and Piezo2 have also both been found to be important when it comes to chronic pain, and are explored as new targets for drug development. A company who’s approach captures the fundamental Nobel discoveries is Swedish AlzeCure Pharma, founded in 2012. “The Nobel Prize has led to our company and our pain project getting a lot of attention. For example, we have received several inquiries about our neuropathic pain project from other pharma companies looking to in-license promising pain projects in areas of great medical need,” says Martin Jönsson, CEO, AlzeCure Pharma. THE NOBEL PRIZE // MEDICINE