Nobel Prize for Medicine
October 3, 2011
Three immunologists have collectively won the 2011 Nobel Prize for Medicine for their work developing vaccines and therapies against infections, cancer and inflammatory diseases.
The trio - Bruce Beutler, Jules Hoffmann and Ralph Steinman - were awarded $1.5 million (1.1 million euros) for their efforts in researching the immune system.
However, the awarding of the prize struck a sad note Monday when it became known that Steinman, 68, had in fact passed away days before the Nobel committee announced this year's laureates. According to the Rockefeller University in New York, where he had worked, Steinman had died after a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer.
The Nobel jury said Monday that the decision over this year's winners would stand despite rules prohibiting the awarding of Nobel prizes posthumously.
"Work produced by a person since deceased shall not be considered for an award," the Nobel committee's rules state. "If, however, a prizewinner dies before he has received the prize, then the prize may be presented."
Ground-breaking work
In the 1990s, Beutler and Hoffmann discovered receptor proteins which can recognize organisms as they enter the body, activating immunity which is present from birth.
Twenty years earlier, Steinmann had discovered dendritic cells and their role in developing immunity which emerges later in life. Dendritic cells have a kind of memory, preparing the body for the next time it is threatened by an infection caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites or fungus.
"This year's Nobel Laureates revolutionized our understanding of the immune system by discovering key principles for its facilitation," said Sweden's Karolinska Institute, which is responsible for appointing Nobel winners for physiology and medicine.
Potential for developing cures
In the long term, it will be possible to use the discoveries to improve the treatments for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and chronic inflammatory diseases, said Goran Hansson of the Nobel committee.
Beutler is a professor of genetics and immunology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Before his retirement, Hoffmann, headed a research laboratory in Strasbourg, France, and served as president of the French National Academy of Sciences between 2007 and 2008.
The field was seen as wide open for the prize this year. Other possible candidates for the prize included two scientists who unlocked some of the mysteries linked to obesity and a professor who figured out how to make stem cells without human embryos.
The prize for medicine is awarded first, followed over the course of the week by the awards for physics, chemistry, literature, economics and peace. The economics prize wraps up the Nobel season.
The prizes will be handed out at formal ceremonies in Oslo and Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.
Author: Darren Mara, Gregg Benzow, Dagmar Breitenbach (AP, AFP, Reuters)
Editor: Nancy Isenson