NeuroMarseille welcomes Professor Ardem Patapoutian, 2021 Nobel Prize winner

A privileged exchange between Nobel Prize winners and students

The day opened with a first meeting dedicated to students. Exceptionally, this meeting, usually reserved for PhD students, was extended to all NeuroSchool students, from L3 to PhD students, as well as young post-docs. It was a unique opportunity for students to talk freely with Prof. Patapoutian about his award-winning research, and more broadly about his own experiences.

Revolutionary discoveries

Following this meeting, over 600 people flocked to the Palais du Pharo to attend the general public conference, in English, entitled "How do you feel? The molecules that sense touch". The talk covered the ground-breaking discoveries for which Prof. Patapoutian has been rewarded, notably the discovery of Piezo mechanosensitive ion channels, which has led to an understanding of the fundamental mechanisms involved in the perception of touch.

As is often the case in science, such discoveries are the result of genuine teamwork. This is precisely what led to this event, as two researchers from Marseille, Aziz Moqrich from the Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille (CNRS/AMU) and Bertrand Coste from the Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives (AMU/CNRS), played a crucial role in this research during their post-doctoral contracts in Prof. Patapoutian's laboratory. The audience witnessed a wonderful moment of reunion between mentor and former collaborators, culminating in Prof. Patapoutian presenting one of his 3 replicas of the Nobel Prize medal to Bertrand Coste, for his work on cloning Piezo channels.

Find out more about the history of this collaboration.