Ardem Patapoutian Keynote Speaker

Ardem Patapoutian is a Nobel Prize–winning molecular biologist specializing in sensory biology whose discoveries revealed how our bodies sense touch, pressure and proprioception. His research led to the identification of receptors activated by temperature and pressure—most notably the Piezo1 and Piezo2 ion channels—showing how these molecular switches convert physical stimuli into electrical signals. His laboratory has demonstrated that these channels play crucial roles in sensing temperature, touch, proprioception, pain and blood pressure, transforming understanding across neuroscience and medicine.

Patapoutian is an American scientist of Armenian origin. Born in Lebanon in 1967, he attended the American University of Beirut for one year before immigrating to the United States in 1986 and becoming a US citizen. He graduated from UCLA in 1990, received his PhD at Caltech in 1996, and completed postdoctoral research at UCSF. He joined Scripps Research in 2000, where he holds the Presidential Endowed Chair and is Professor in the Department of Neuroscience.

His contributions have been recognized with the Society for Neuroscience Young Investigator Award (2006) and selection as an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2014). Honours include Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2016), membership of the US National Academy of Sciences (2017) and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2020), the Alden Spencer Award from Columbia (2017) and the Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Research (2019). His work culminated in the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience (2020) and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2021).

On stage, Patapoutian offers lucid, story-driven insight into discovery science—how curiosity, resilience and collaboration fuel breakthroughs with real-world benefit for patients and society.