Image caption Ralph Steinman died of pancreatic cancer 
 
 Canadian scientist Ralph Steinman will keep his Nobel prize for medicine, the Nobel Foundation has said, after his death on Friday threw it into doubt. 
 
 The rules state "work by a person since deceased shall not be considered". 
 
 But the foundation said it was unaware of Prof Steinman's death from pancreatic cancer and that the award had been made "in good faith". 
 
 Prof Steinman was announced the joint winner on Monday, along with Prof Bruce Beutler and Prof Jules Hoffman. 
 
 Prof Steinman received the award for revolutionising the understanding of the immune system. 
 
 He discovered the dendritic cell, which helps the body fight off infection. 
 
 A statement on the Rockefeller University website, where Prof Steinman worked, said the scientist had died on 30 September at the age of 68. 
 
 Work produced by a person since deceased shall not be considered for an award. If, however, a prizewinner dies before he has received the prize, then the prize may be presented Nobel Foundation 
 
 He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer four years ago. 
 
 The foundation said in a statement: "The events that have occurred are unique and, to the best of our knowledge, are unprecedented in the history of the Nobel Prize. 
 
 "According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, work produced by a person since deceased shall not be given an award. However, the statutes specify that if a person has been awarded a prize and has died before receiving it, the prize may be presented. 
 
 "An interpretation of the purpose of this rule leads to the conclusion that Ralph Steinman shall be awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine." 
 
 It said the award had been made "in good faith, based on the assumption that the Nobel Laureate was alive. This was true - though not at the time of the decision - only a day or so previously". 
 
 Ahead of the foundation's statement, Rockefeller University president Marc Tessier-Lavigne said it was "delighted that the Nobel Foundation [had] recognised Ralph Steinman for his seminal discoveries concerning the body's immune responses. 
 
 "But the news is bittersweet, as we also learned this morning from Ralph's family that he passed a few days ago after a long battle with cancer. 
 
 "Our thoughts are with Ralph's wife, children and family." 
 
 Prof Steinman was being treated with a dendritic-cell based therapy which he designed himself. 
 
 The Nobel Foundation expressed "deep sadness and regret" and said that "our thoughts are with Ralph Steinman's family and colleagues". 
 
 Image caption Ralph Steinman was awarded for his discovery of the dendritic cell 
 
 In 1931, Erik Axel Karlfeldt was posthumously awarded the Nobel prize for literature, but the rules were changed in 1974. 
 
 In 1996 William Vickrey died between the announcement and the prize ceremony. 
 
 Three pioneers of the immune system shared this year's award for medicine. 
 
 Prof Beutler and Prof Hoffman discovered how the body's first line of defence was activated. 
 
 The Nobel prize committee said: "Together Bruce Beutler, Jules Hoffmann and Ralph Steinman have revolutionised understanding of the immune system by discovering key principles for its activation. 
 
 "They have opened up new avenues for prevention and therapy." 

 The Nobel committee, unaware of his death, announced the award Monday in Stockholm. Steinman’s employer, Rockefeller University in New York, learned of his death after the Nobel announcement. 
 
 Steinman’s wife, Claudia, said the family had planned to disclose his death Monday — only to discover an email to his cellphone from the Nobel committee. 
 
 Friends and colleagues were stunned by his death. 
 
 “For the last five years, I’ve gotten up in the morning of the Nobel Prize announcement and rushed to the computer to see his name,” said Olivera J. Finn of the University of Pittsburgh. 
 
 “And this morning I saw it, and I just totally shrieked with joy,” she said. Then she heard the bad news from a friend in Singapore. 
 
 “I have been this whole morning ... out of breath like somebody punched me in the stomach,” Finn said. 
 
 Experts disagree whether Steinman’s research helped him live for 4½ years after he was diagnosed. A colleague in his lab thinks it did. The odds of making it even a year with his type of cancer are less than 5 percent. 
 
 Nobel officials said they believed it was the first time that a laureate had died before the announcement without the committee’s knowledge. 
 
 “It is incredibly sad news,” said Nobel Foundation chairman Lars Heikensten. “We can only regret that he didn’t have the chance to receive the news he had won the Nobel Prize. Our thoughts are now with his family.” 
 
 Since 1974, the Nobel statutes don’t allow posthumous awards unless a laureate dies after the announcement but before the Dec. 10 award ceremony. That happened in 1996 when economics winner William Vickrey died a few days after the announcement. 
 
 However, the committee said Monday that Steinman’s award would stand and that his survivors would receive his share of the $1.5 million prize. 
 
 The Canadian-born Steinman, 68, was awarded the prize along with American Bruce Beutler and French scientist Jules Hoffmann. They were honored for discoveries about the body’s disease-fighting immune system. 
 
 Steinman discovered so-called dendritic cells in 1973. These cells regulate the activity of other cells — Steinman called them the conductor of the immune system. 
 
 “When he got sick, he realized he needed to call upon these cells to induce a strong enough immune response to fight his tumor, and that is what he did,” said Dr. Sarah Schlesinger, clinical director for his lab. 
 
 Steinman tried eight to 10 experimental therapies approved by the federal government, focusing in various ways on revving up his immune system to fight his cancer, she said. 
 
 Colleagues came forward with their best approaches for other kinds of cancer, and Steinman analyzed what seemed the most promising for him. 
 
 In one approach, for example, samples of Steinman’s own dendritic cells were loaded with protein markers from his tumor, and then reinjected into his body. The idea was that this would “teach his immune system how to respond to that tumor,” said Rockefeller colleague Dr. Michel Nussenzweig.
– Earlier today, the Nobel team announced this year’s winners for medicine; hours later, it emerged that one of the three intended recipients, immune researcher Ralph Steinman, has been dead for three days, the BBC reports. "The news is bittersweet," said the president of Rockefeller University, where Steinman worked, "as we also learned this morning from Ralph's family that he passed a few days ago after a long battle with cancer." The news prompted an emergency meeting of the Nobel committee, because the prize's rules state that “work produced by a person since deceased shall not be considered." The committee said it hadn't known Steinman was dead, and that the situation was "unprecedented in the history of the Nobel Prize." After the meeting, the committee confirmed that its decision "shall remain unchanged," the Washington Post reports. It reasoned that Steinman's death was similar to past cases in which laureates have died after being named but before the award ceremony.