Ardem Patapoutian

Ardem Patapoutian is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Scripps Research. He earned his undergraduate degree from University of California, Los Angeles and completed his Ph.D. at California Institute of Technology in the laboratory of Barbara Wold. Following postdoctoral research with Louis Reichardt at University of California, San Francisco, he joined the faculty at Scripps Research.

Patapoutian has received numerous honors for his groundbreaking discoveries in sensory neuroscience, including the W. Alden Spencer Award in 2017, the Rosenstiel Award in 2019, and in 2020 the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biology and Biomedicine. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with David Julius for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.

The sense of touch is unique in perceiving stimuli both physical (temperature, mechanical) and chemical (compounds that cause pain, itch, et cetera) in nature. The Patapoutian lab has identified and characterized molecules responsible for sensing environmental temperature. These proteins are ion channels activated by distinct changes in thermal energy (in the noxious to innocuous range), thus functioning as the molecular thermometers of our body. A subset of these same ion channels also act as polymodal chemosensors and play an essential role in pain and inflammation. Small molecule antagonists of TRPA1, one of the ion channels identified in the Patapoutian lab, is currently in clinical studies.

Mechanotransduction is perhaps the last sensory modality not understood at the molecular level. Proteins/ion channels that sense mechanical force are postulated to play critical roles in sensing touch/pain (somatosensation), sound (hearing), shear stress (cardiovascular tone), etc.; however, the identity of ion channels involved in sensing mechanical force has remained elusive. The Patapoutian lab identified PIEZO1 and PIEZO2, mechanically-activated cation channels that are expressed in many mechanosensitive cell types. Genetic studies established that PIEZO2 is the principal mechanical transducer for touch, proprioception, and baroreception, and that PIEZO1 mediates blood-flow sensing, which impacts blood pressure regulation and vascular development. Patapoutian lab has since isolated other mechanosensors including GPR68 and OSCA/TMEM63 family members. The lab continues to analyze the physiological relevance of these ion channels and receptors in mechanosensation, and search for novel mechanically activated sensors. To learn more visit here.

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