Long read: Ardem Patapoutian, Nobel Prize winner in Medicine: ‘90% of people don’t even know they have a sense of proprioception’

Scientists don’t necessarily have to be boring, especially if you listen to this Noble prize winner – Ardem Patapoutian. In this free wheeling interview, he talks about his life origins, his scientific discovery and more importantly speaks up about the implications of Trump’s crack down on funding for scientific research. He ends with his very own fascinating five rules for science.

He begins with his discovery, the Piezo protein, the outline of which molecule he has got tattooed on his hand.

“…the Piezo family of proteins, which are responsible for the sense of touch and an increasingly astonishing list of human characteristics….In the membrane of some cells, these molecules function like an electrical switch, initiating a nerve impulse when they sense pressure. Since their existence was announced in 2010, the scientific community has discovered that Piezo proteins are essential in a multitude of vital processes, such as pain, blood pressure, breathing, bladder control, and even sexual arousal.

…it seems to be involved in many cells that sense pressure, whether it’s bladder filling or blood vessels. Biology thinks that most cells communicate by chemicals, whether it’s a hormone, a neurotransmitter… Everything is chemical. But what we’re discovering is that pressure sensing is also very important. We’re finding a new biology.

When food enters the body, neurons in the gastrointestinal tract sense the pressure and slow the food down, so you have more opportunity to extract nutrients. Without the Piezo 2 protein, food goes much faster through the gut. It’s a completely new biology. People with mutations in Piezo 2 have all kinds of digestive problems, like diarrhea and constipation. It’s one of the latest examples of the functions of Piezo proteins.”

Hence, he says that the most important sense is not necessarily sight, nor hearing, nor smell:

“It’s proprioception. Maybe I’m exaggerating a little, because some people might say that vision is most important for humans. It’s fascinating that probably 90% of people don’t even know they have a sense of proprioception, which is the sense of where your limbs are in space.

…people who do yoga or Pilates learn this word because it’s about being aware of their bodies. The simplest test is to close your eyes and touch your nose. If you think about how you’re able to tell where your fingers are with your eyes closed, you realize it’s because of how much your muscles are stretched. It’s the same sensor, Piezo 2, that senses this.

One of the lessons from our studies is that the idea of five senses is a bit naive. You can say that proprioception is the sixth sense. What about temperature sensation? What about sensing your bladder? It’s not touch — what is it then? It’s another sense. So all these different senses, which in our minds are very distinct, like blood pressure sensing and lung stretch, are not touch, but they’re all being done by the same molecule. The definitions are hard to ascertain, but we certainly have more than five senses.”

His life origins are no less fascinating than his discovery either:
“Patapoutian, the grandson of orphans of the Armenian genocide, was born in Beirut and grew up in Lebanon, torn apart by civil war. There, he was kidnapped by militants and held at gunpoint as a teenager, so he decided to emigrate to the United States. In Los Angeles, initially unable to understand the local English, he began a new life delivering pizzas for the fast-food chain Subway, but ended up studying biology and is now a researcher at the Scripps Institute in San Diego.”

Unlike many of our celebrities who rarely speak up on social or political issues lest they upset the establishment, Pataputian has been particularly vocal through his writings and speeches on Trump’s cuts on funding scientific research:

“My parents didn’t have much money, so I got a Pell Grant, a federal aid program for students who can’t afford college. Aid like that has been cut or no longer exists. Many young people would like to go to the United States to pursue their dreams, but that option is not available to them anymore. It’s very sad. I feel an extra responsibility to speak up now. Forty percent of Nobel Prize winners in the United States are immigrants, but this administration doesn’t value science or immigration.

…I wrote an opinion piece at CNN in which I included data showing that for every dollar the government spends on science, $3 goes into the economy. Cutting science means cutting economic gain and future medicines…. Cutting funding won’t directly kill people, but the lack or slowdown of research and clinical trials will. The next cancer drug might be approved later, which could cause many people to die.”

The Chinese are grabbing this opportunity. Apparently, he had been approached with an offer to move to China, with 20 years of guaranteed financing:

“I have turned down an offer to do research in China because I love my country and I’m not going to give up on it so quickly.” But many others do not feel the same and are taking their research elsewhere.

He ends with his five rules for doing science or any creative discipline:

“Rule number one is not to be too busy. This is easier said than done, but it’s very important. If you’re very busy, you’re not creative. I create pockets of time for myself. For example, I don’t have meetings on Tuesdays. I have time to spend in the lab thinking and reading.”

Second: “Change your field of work. I compare this to being an immigrant. When you’re an immigrant, you go to a new country and see that people do things differently. So, you adopt the ways that make sense to you, but you keep the ones that also make sense to you. And you blend them. And changing areas in science is the same. You go to a new field, you bring your knowledge of how to do things with you, but you also learn from the new field and blend them.

Rule number 3 is: Surround yourself with critics. Especially if you win the Nobel Prize, people criticize you less. I have close colleagues and friends who tell me when I’m wrong. When you’re successful, you start to think you know everything, but you don’t. That’s why you need someone to constantly tell you that you’re talking nonsense.”

Fourth: “I offer advice, and one of them is not to follow the advice. Sometimes people listen to what an authority says just because they’re an authority, but you have to check if it makes sense to you. If someone tells you to do something and it doesn’t make sense to you, don’t do it.

Rule number 5 is my main reason for doing science: because it’s fun. I love that we’re doing translational research to find medicines, but my goal has always been to do curiosity-driven research. If you look back at the history of science, curiosity-driven research often yields the most important applications. So I think society needs to learn that the best way to do science, the best way to find future medicines, is to fund curiosity-driven research. And the applications will come. There are many examples of this. The CRISPR technique, which is famous for manipulating DNA and is revolutionizing biotechnology, is based on the science of how viruses infect bacteria.”

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