Patapoutian was born to a
Lebanese Armenian family in
Beirut, Lebanon. His father, Sarkis Patapoutian (better known by the pen name ), is a poet and an accountant, while his mother, Haiguhi Adjemian, was the principal of an Armenian school in Beirut. He has a brother, Ara, and a sister, Houry. His grandparents settled in Lebanon from
Hadjin after surviving the
Armenian Genocide. He is childhood friends with journalist and author
Vicken Cheterian. He attended the Demirdjian and Hovagimian Armenian schools in Beirut. In 1986, Patapoutian and his brother immigrated to the United States as refugees. Once in the United States, Patapoutian worked odd jobs, such as delivering pizzas and writing horoscopes for an Armenian newspaper, as he established residency in the state of California. He received a
B.S. degree in cell and developmental biology from the
University of California, Los Angeles in 1990 and a
PhD degree in biology from the
California Institute of Technology in 1996 under direction of
Barbara Wold. As a postdoctoral fellow, Patapoutian worked with Louis F. Reichardt at the
University of California, San Francisco. In 2000, he became an assistant professor at Scripps Research (then known as The Scripps Research Institute). Since 2014, Patapoutian has been an investigator for the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). ==Personal life==