Ardem Patapoutian, a Lebanese-American molecular biologist and neuroscientist of Armenian descent, received the Nobel Prize in the fields of Physiology and Medicine. The prize was awarded for discoveries on how the nervous system transmits temperature and touch.

Professor Patapoutian was born in Beirut in 1967 and studied at the American University. He left for the United States in 1986 and studied at the University of California, Los Angeles.