American scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian won the 2021 Nobel Prize for medicine on Monday for the discovery of receptors in the skin that sense temperature and touch and could pave the way for new painkillers.

Their work, carried out independently, has helped show how humans convert the physical impact from heat or touch into nerve impulses that allow us to "perceive and adapt to the world around us," the Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institute said.

"This knowledge is being used to develop treatments for a wide range of disease conditions, including chronic pain."

Patapoutian, who was born in 1967 to Armenian parents...