Last Friday, the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine Dr. Steinman at work
announced that the 2011 Nobel Prize is being awarded to three researchers for their groundbreaking work on human immune systems and discovering key principles for its activation.

The press release from the Nobel Committee called these discoveries “the gatekeepers of the immune response by which man and other animals defend themselves against attack by bacteria and other microorganisms.”

Half of the $3M prize is to be split by Bruce A. Beutler and Jules A. Hoffmann for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity. The other half goes to Dr. Ralph M. Steinman for his discovery of the dendritic cell, an immune cell that acts as a messenger between the innate immunity and adaptive immunity, and its role in adaptive immunity.

Their combined discoveries provide new insights in treating infections, inflammatory diseases and cancer by defining how our immune systems are activated. They found that there are actually two immune responses: the innate immunity that stops the infection and the adaptive immunity that develops anti-bodies and clears the infection.

Dr. Steinman discovered that the dendritic cells of the immune system have a unique ability to activate and regulate adaptive immunity. "These findings were initially met with skepticism but subsequent work by Mr. Steinman demonstrated that dendritic cells have a unique capacity to activate T cells," said the Nobel Committee. These developments breathe life into new drugs and treatments for chronic immune disorders such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease.

On Monday, the Nobel Committee found themselves in somewhat of a bind over awarding the prize, as Dr. Steinman had actually died just hours earlier. According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, the Committee is to contact recipient researchers before any announcements are made. Unfortunately, this time, they did not get any response but went ahead with the announcement anyway.

A statement from Rockefeller University said, "Steinman passed away on September 30^th. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer four years ago, and his life was extended using a dendritic-cell based immunotherapy of his own design." He essentially turned his body into a laboratory of his own.

Having never had this situation come up before, the foundation’s nine-member board of directors met to review the statutes that state the Nobel Prize is not to be given posthumously. If a person who is announced as a prize winner dies before receiving it at the Nobel ceremonies, the award remains valid. The directors decided that because Dr. Steinman’s “award was made in good faith on the assumption that he was alive at the time of his election, he should receive it.”

Dr. Bruce Beutler, who shares the award with Steinman and Hoffmann, stated, "I think it is a great tragedy that he didn't live quite long enough to know that he had won the Nobel Prize."

In a statement, Dr. Steinman's daughter Alexis said, "We are all so touched that our father's many years of hard work are being recognized with a Nobel Prize." She continued, "He devoted his life to his work and his family, and he would be truly honored."