Ardem Patapoutian was photographed watching the Nobel Prize press conference from the comfort of his bed shortly after finding out that he had won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with David Julius. David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian have been awarded this year's Nobel Medicine Prize for discoveries on receptors for temperature and touch, the jury announced today.
David Julius, a professor at the University of California in San Francisco and Ardem Patapoutian, a professor at Scripps Research in California, will share the Nobel Prize cheque for 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.1 million, one million euros).
On Monday afternoon, shortly after their names were announced, the official Instagram account of the Nobel Prize shared a picture of Mr Patapoutian and his son, Luca. The two were photographed sitting in bed, a laptop in front of them to stream the Nobel Prize press conference.
"Just in! New medicine laureate Ardem Patapoutian and his son Luca, watching the #NobelPrize press conference shortly after finding out the happy news," the Nobel Prize captioned the photograph.
The Nobel committee also revealed that an interview with Mr Patapoutian would be shared soon.
The Nobel Prize account followed it up with a picture of David Julius, who celebrated his win with wife Holly Ingraham and an early morning cup of coffee.
David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian's "breakthrough discoveries" launched intense research activities which have helped in our understanding "of how our nervous system senses heat, cold, and mechanical stimuli", the Nobel Prize said in an Instagram post this afternoon while announcing the two winners.
"David Julius utilised capsaicin, a pungent compound from chilli peppers that induces a burning sensation, to identify a sensor in the nerve endings of the skin that responds to heat," the committee said, while Ardem Patapoutian used "pressure-sensitive cells to discover a novel class of sensors that respond to mechanical stimuli in the skin and internal organs."
The Nobel season continues on Tuesday with the award for physics and Wednesday with chemistry, followed by the much-anticipated prizes for literature on Thursday and peace on Friday before the economics prize winds things up on Monday, October 11.
