(Jewish Group)Scientist David Julius, grandparents fled Czarist Russia, wins Nobel Prize in medicine

Scientist David Julius, whose grandparents fled antisemitism in Czarist Russia, wins Nobel Prize in medicine

David Julius, a professor of physiology at the University of California, San Francisco, whose grandparents fled antisemitism in Czarist Russia, was awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine on Monday. He shared the award with Ardem Patapoutian, a molecular biologist and neuroscientist at the Scripps Research center.

The Nobel Prize committee cited Julius and Patapoutian’s research “for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch,” which have improved treatments for pain caused by a range of diseases.

Julius was born in 1955 and grew up in Brighton Beach, which was then home to a large population of Russian Jewish emigres. Julius described the neighborhood as “a landing pad for Eastern European immigrants like my grandparents, who fled Czarist Russia and antisemitism in pursuit of a better life.”

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