Nobel laureate David Julius will present the second Senior Vice Chancellor’s Laureate Lecture of the year through his keynote speech at the inaugural Pain Day on May 7, 2025. Julius, chair of the Department of Physiology at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, will present “Gut Feelings: Probing Mechanisms of Visceral Pain.”
Julius and Ardem Patapoutian, professor at Scripps Research and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their breakthrough discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch. Julius continues this work with his lab by exploring how sensory systems allow humans to perceive the world.
Julius’s research group has investigated the properties of natural products to uncover a family of thermo- and chemo-sensitive ion channels that enable sensory nerve fibers to detect temperature changes and noxious stimuli. Using genetic, electrophysiological and behavioral approaches, they have elucidated the role of these ion channels in pain sensation and how their activity is influenced by factors such as tumor growth, infection and injury-induced inflammation, leading to pain hypersensitivity.
Julius, a native of New York City, earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977 and his PhD in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984. There, he focused his graduate studies on understanding the mechanisms of peptide hormone processing and secretion in yeast. He completed his postdoctoral studies at Columbia University, where he identified genes encoding members of the serotonin receptor family.
He has served as a member of the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Board of Trustees and as editor of the Annual Review of Physiology.
This event is part of the Senior Vice Chancellor’s Laureate Lectures, a revival of the University of Pittsburgh’s series featuring some of the world’s top-tier scientists engaged in significant and dynamic biomedical research currently underway. This lecture follows one by Drew Weissman, a winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for breakthrough work on mRNA treatments.
Julius’s lecture will be held at 2 p.m. in Alumni Hall on the third floor.
Photo Credit: BBVA Foundation