From 8 to 5, why did he win the Nobel Prize when he was 54 when he used a dumb method?

On October 4, Beijing time, David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian were awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering temperature and tactile receptors
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Related Reading｜Just now, the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was announced!

What kind of person is the Nobel Prize winner in his daily life? What are the interesting stories during their research? Why did this research win the Nobel Prize? "China Science Daily" invited 4 experts to interpret
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The ability to perceive heat, cold and touch is essential to survival and is the basis for our interaction with the world around us
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We always take these feelings for granted, but how are nerve impulses activated, and how are temperature and pressure perceived by us? This year's Nobel Prize winner answered these questions

Julius uses capsaicin (a pungent compound from peppers that can cause a burning sensation) to identify sensors in the nerve endings of the skin that respond to heat
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Patapoutian uses pressure-sensitive cells to discover a new type of sensor that can respond to mechanical stimuli in the skin and internal organs

Nobel committee will evaluate these breakthrough discoveries started intensive research activities, resulting in what we perceive as heat, cold and mechanical stimulation of the rapid increase in the understanding of the nervous system
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The winners found a key missing link in our understanding of the complex interaction between the senses and the environment

"China Science News": What kind of people do you know of the Nobel Prize winners?

Xiao Bailong, Professor of School of Pharmacy, Tsinghua University:

Ardem is 54 years old and is very young as a Nobel Prize winner
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In my eyes, he is a very energetic and aggressive scientist who always likes to lead a field

I did post-doctoral research in the Ardem laboratory, and what impressed me very much was his work efficiency
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He always comes to the office at 8 in the morning and leaves at 5 in the afternoon

Professor Yang Maojun, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University:

At an international conference, I once heard Ardem’s report.
I remembered him saying that when they did this research, they used a very “stupid” method to integrate more than 200 ion channel genes that may be related to cell pressure.
Knock out one by one using RNAi (RNA interference) technology to determine whether the cells can still feel the pressure.
It was not until the 100th knockout that they found a key gene.
Later they named this gene Piezo1, and they did this research.
It's really hard
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In 2010, they published their article appraising Piezo.
My first feeling after seeing it was that this should win the Nobel Prize.
After all, there have been many awards in research findings related to basic human perception, such as taste and vision
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It was also from that time that our team officially began to work on expression, purification, and analysis of Piezo's three-dimensional structure, in order to explain how this channel works, and the near-atomic resolution structure of this channel was reported for the first time in 2015

"China Science News": How do you feel after knowing the results of this year's Nobel Prize?

Guo Xiaoqiang, a popular science writer in the field of life sciences:

A "little unpopularity" has exploded in the hot field!

Unsurprisingly, this year's Nobel Prize was awarded to the high-pitched neuroscience field
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But awarded to the discoverer of tactile and pain receptors, it feels a bit unpopular

For this year's Nobel Prize, most people think that it will be awarded to scientists in the field of neuroscience who discover the molecular mechanism of hearing or develop optogenetics
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And some of these scientists are already 80 years old

Although it is generally believed that the two scientists David and Ardem won the award "sooner or later," they are really "too young
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"

Yang Maojun:

This makes me even more emotional.
The research on the basic perception of the human body is indeed Nobel Prize
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Xiao Bailong:

Now, the Ardem laboratory is exploring in a new direction, starting to search for mechanically sensitive channels in plants
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This great scientist who has won the Nobel Prize has unlimited possibilities in the future
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"China Science News": Why did this research win the Nobel Prize?

Xiao Bailong:

In many cases, the Nobel Prize is awarded to the exploration of the essential problems of nature
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It's the same this time
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Mechanical stimuli from the outside world are ubiquitous, and the mechanism of tactile sensation is a very basic scientific problem
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The Piezo channel discovered by the Ardem team plays a very broad role in the body, and many systems require it
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And there is very clear human genetic evidence that its mutations can cause many genetic diseases
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China Kexue Yuan Innovation Center for Brain Science and the technical excellence of intelligent researcher Chouzai Long:

The main discovery of the Nobel Prize winners is the related research on Trpv1 and Piezo channels, which are the two winners with the greatest mechanical perception in the field of tactile pain
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First, this is a basic scientific discovery, and second, the discovery has sufficient influence
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The mechanical perception of pain is related to many human diseases
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But it is not because pain is related to disease that scientists study it, but it is precisely because of many original studies in this field that we have discovered that research on the mechanism of pain is of great importance to human life, health and disease treatment.
Meaning
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This reminds us once again that great scientific achievements often come from human beings' unutilitarian seeking truth and innovation
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