2021 Nobel Prize for mechanosensory transduction.

Written by someone who has worked in the mechanobiology field for close to 40 years, this commentary describes some historical background to the recent award of one-half of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine to Ardem Patapoutian for his discovery of the family of mechanosensitive Piezo ion channels, which function as mechanoreceptors feeling the environment in senses such as touch, pain, and proprioception.