First reactions | Ardem Patapoutian, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021 | Telephone interview

“In science many times it’s the things that we take for granted that are of high interest.” – As Ardem Patapoutian says, sometimes the familiar can yield the best surprises. When it comes to figuring out how our senses work, the sense of touch “was kind of the big elephant in the room.” Patapoutian had his phone on Do Not Disturb when Stockholm tried to call him but got the news, via his Dad, just in time to watch the press conference, sitting in bed with his son Luca. Adam Smith caught him there to record this brief call moments after the public announcement of his Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and he describes how finally finding the sensors that allow cells to detect pressure has opened up whole new unexpected vistas of phenomena that are governed by sensitivity to touch. As he reflects, “Nobody ever could have thought that pressure sensing is related to these processes.”

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