Dr. Ardem Patapoutian. Lebanon born US Scientist.
Lebanese-Armenian scientist Ardem Patapoutian is one of the two winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of receptors for touch, heat and bodily movement
Two scientists who made landmark discoveries about human senses, have won the Nobel Prize for Medicine, beating vaccine pioneers to the prestigious award.
Announcing the winners after balloting behind closed doors on Monday, the Nobel jury said the US duo had broken open a “fundamental unsolved question” about human biology.
Dr Patapoutian, who was born in Lebanon in 1967 and moved to the US as a young man, works at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California. He identified genes that control sensitivity to touch.
The proteins he discovered also play a role in how people sense motion and how the body deals with blood pressure, respiration and bladder control.
He said his research had shone light on fundamental human behaviour which many people rarely question. “In science, many times, it’s the things that we take for granted that are of high interest,” he said
Nobel prize winner Ardem Patapoutian was also awarded Lebanese Order of Merit.
Dr. Patapoutian, who was born to an Armenian family in Beirut, Lebanon in 1967, came to the United States in 1986. “I fell in love with doing basic research. That changed the trajectory of my career,” he said in an interview with the New York Times. “In Lebanon, I didn’t even know about scientists as a career.”
source/content: thenationalnews.com
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USA / LEBANON