Nordic Life Science 1
UPCOMING EVENTS THE NOBEL PRIZE LEARN MORE ABOUT
THE LAUREATES AND THEIR DISCOVERIES IN OUR NEXT ISSUE, OUT FEBRUARY 2022. S C I ENCE AWA RD The 2021 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Medicine both have important life science applications, including treatment of chronic pain and construction of new pharmaceuticals. David Julius , Ardem Patapoutian, Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan to be announced this year was the Physiology or Medicine Prize and the two winners were David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian. They are receiving the Prize for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch. Julius utilized capsaicin to identify a sensor in the nerve endings of the skin that responds to heat. Ardem Patapoutian used pressure-sensitive cells to discover a novel class of sensors that respond to mechanical stimuli in the skin and internal organs. These discoveries have increased our understanding of how our nervous system senses heat, cold, and mechanical stimuli. Research originating from these discoveries is being used to develop treatments for a wide range of disease conditions, including chronic pain. 86 One of the receptors discovered by the Laureates is the TRPV1 receptor, which is used by Swedish biotech company PILA Pharma as the leading principle for a novel treatment of diabetes. “I’m a true fan of Dr. Julius, and I used his TRPV1 knock-out mice to first demonstrate TRPV1’s specific role in diabetes via regulation of insulin secretion and glucose tolerance! Results that we recently replicated in subjects with type 2 diabetes! With the Nobel Prize committees honorable validation of TRPV1 as an important molecular target we look forward even more to further progressing our TRPV1 antagonist to phase 2b tests in diabetes,” says Dorte X. Gram, founder, PILA Pharma. Two days later, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was announced and the two winners were Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan. They are receiving the Prize for the development of organocatalysis, a precise new tool for molecular construction. Catalysts are fundamental tools for chemists, but researchers long believed that there were, in principle, just two types of catalysts available: metals and enzymes. The two Laureates, independent of each other, developed a third type of catalysis, organocatalysis. This builds upon small organic molecules and, using these reactions, researchers can now more efficiently construct anything from new pharmaceuticals to molecules that can capture light in solar cells. “This concept for catalysis is as simple as it is ingenious, and the fact is that many people have wondered why we didn’t think of it earlier,” says Johan Åqvist, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. NLS NORDICLIFESCIENCE.ORG ILLUSTRATION NIKLAS ELMEHED © NOBEL PRIZE OUTREACH