Today’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine honors work in
immunology that provides new avenues for prevention and therapy
against infections, cancer, and inflammatory disease. The Prize
is shared by three researchers who have “revolutionized our
understanding of the immune system” by discovering the
“gatekeepers” of this integral defense mechanism, according to
the Nobel Assembly’s press release. Jules Hoffmann, a
Luxembourgian based at the University of Strasbourg in France,
and Bruce Beutler, an American at Scripps Research Institute in
California, share half of the award for discovering receptor
proteins that recognize microbes and activate innate immunity.
Ralph Steinman, a Canadian cell biologist at Rockefeller
University, took the other half of the award for first
describing the immune system’s dendritic cells and their role in
activating and regulating adaptive immunity, the later stage of
immune response responsible for clearing microorganisms from the
body. Sadly, Steinman passed away last Friday