Best of CASE District VII Award
 

Institution: University of California, San Francisco

Title of entry: The Hot-Saucy Science that Nabbed a Nobel

About this entry: When University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) scientist David Julius and UCSF post-doc alum Ardem Patapoutian jointly won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, it was too late in UCSF Magazine’s production process to include an in-depth story about their research.

We knew we wanted to feature such a story in our subsequent issue. But this posed a challenge: The issue would be published many months after the initial excitement of the award and after many stories about their science had already been published. What fresh take could we bring to this story that would inform, inspire, and engage UCSF Magazine’s audience of donors and alumni?

When writer Ariel Bleicher dug in, she learned how Julius’s and Patapoutian’s Nobel-Prize-winning revelations opened the floodgates to new avenues of inquiry about how our bodies sense heat, cold, pain, and touch. She also uncovered the huge ripple effect of David Julius’s mentorship, as many of the fresh insights came from scientists who had trained in his lab.

We decided to ditch pursuing a long narrative – others had done those – and instead tell this story through a series of vignettes and callouts about these remarkable findings, accompanied by explainer illustrations, lively graphics, and a cartoon-style video. We wanted a fresh, non-stuffy tone.

The result is a story that one might not expect about serious Nobel-winning science – a fun, informative piece that both our alumni and donors (most of whom are not scientists) can enjoy.