Two studies carried out at the University of Bucharest, cited in the publications for which the Nobel foundation awarded the Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 2021

Two scientific studies, in which collaborated professor Maria-Luiza Flonta, PhD, and Professor Gordon Reid, PhD, professor at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Bucharest, were cited in two of the eight reference publications, for which the Nobel Foundation awarded the Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 2021.

The studies, carried out in the form of electrophysiological investigations carried out in the Neurobiology Laboratory within the faculty, indicated the existence of channels sensitive to low temperatures. The Nobel Prize winners also started from this hypothesis when they were concerned with an unexploited research topic to its full potential: the way we perceive the world around us with the help of temperature and touch receivers.

Thus, in early 2021, American researchers David Julius – professor at the University of California in San Francisco, and Ardem Patapoutian, professor at Scripps Research in La Jolla, San Diego, both institutions in the United States, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for contributions to understanding how we manage to feel touch, heat, or cold, skills essential to our survival as a species.

Professor David Julius used capsaicin, a hot pepper substance that produces burning and pain sensations, to identify receptors in the skin that respond to hot thermal stimuli. Capsaicin was known to activate nerve cells and cause a painful sensation, but it was not known exactly how this happened. The team led by David Julius has created a library of small DNA fragments corresponding to genes that are expressed in nerves sensitive to pain, heat and touch, assuming that one of them could encode a protein capable of responding to capsaicin. After many tests, the studies coordinated by Professor David Juliusau were able to identify a protein that responded to capsaicin, as well as to high temperatures perceived as painful, which they called “TRPV1”.

A collaboration that “led” to the Nobel

Subsequently, David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian independently encoded the cold-sensitive “TRPM8” receptor. In addition, Ardem Patapoutian and his team at Scripps Research identified skin-deforming receptors that they called “Piezo 1” and “Piezo 2” [pieces (gr.) = Pressure], essential for touch sensitivity.Their results paved the way for the study of TRP receptors and Piezo ion channels by many laboratories around the world, and these channels are now known to participate in the regulation of other physiological functions that depend on temperature or mechanical stimuli.“If we imagine that all the articles used in their work by David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian form a preliminary construction of 100 bricks, the contribution of our laboratory to the generation of knowledge in this field was 1.39 bricks. (…) Eric Kandel, author of the prestigious Principles of Neural Science, said that his mother asked him when he was returning from school, not what he had learned, but whether he had asked a good question! These studies are the proof that well-asked and determined questions can make the world of our senses slowly reveal its mysteries”, say representatives of the Faculty of Biology.

Scientific studies that although published two decades ago have proven to be current, Cold transduction by inhibition of a background potassium conductance in rat primary sensory neurons and Cold current in thermo-receptive neurons published in the prestigious international publications “Neuroscience Letters” and “Nature” can be consulted here and here. Also, more information on the results obtained by the team of American researchers can be accessed on the Nobel Prizes website.

Professor Maria-Luiza Flonta, PhD, was appointed Professor Emeritus of the Year at UB, in 2017

The academic profile of Professor Maria-Luiza Flonta, PhD, director of the Multiple User Research Base: director of the Center for Neurobiology and Molecular Physiology, as well as a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy, available here. In 2017, during the first edition of the Awards Gala of the Senate of the University of Bucharest, Professor Maria-Luisa Flont, PhD, received the distinction of Professor Emeritus of the Year, in the field of Life and Earth Sciences. Under the direct coordination of the researcher, modern techniques in the field of cell neurophysiology were introduced in Romania. At the same time, in the laboratory within UB where she carried out her activity, the patch clamp technique was used for the first time, a technique useful for measuring the currents through the ion channels in the cell membranes.