Deceased laureate to keep Nobel Medicine Prize

By Lennart Simonsson Oct 3, 2011, 18:21 GMT

Stockholm - Canadian-born Ralph M Steinman, one of three scientists who Monday was awarded the 2011 Nobel Medicine Prize, was to keep his award although he had died at the age of 68 on Friday, the Nobel Foundation said.

Steinman and researchers Bruce A Beutler of the United States and Luxembourg-born Jules A Hoffmann were jointly awarded the prize for pioneering research into the human immune system.

Half of the prize money of 10-million-kronor (1.4 million dollars) was allocated to Steinman, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet said.

The news that Steinman had died, resulted in a close study of the statutes governing the award before the Nobel Foundation decision late Monday that Steinman was to keep his award.

The news of Steinman's death did not reach the Nobel Assembly until several hours after their decision, the board of the Nobel foundation said, describing the events as 'unique.'

The foundation was set up to manage the assets of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, who endowed the prizes also awarded for physics, chemistry, literature and peace.

It said that 'the statutes specify that if a person has been awarded a prize and has died before receiving it, the prize may be presented.'

Nobel expert Anders Barany, who served 1989-2004 as secretary of the Nobel Committe that selects the Nobel Physics Prize, said there were a few similar cases in the history of the prize.

Dag Hammarskjold, the former secretary general of the United Nations who died 1961, was the last posthumous winner of the prize before the statutes were changed, Barany said. In 1996 an economics prize winner, Canada-born William Vickrey, died just hours after he was named one of the winners of that prize but also kept his award.

In awarding the prize, the Nobel Assembly said the trio had 'revolutionized' the understanding of the immune system and 'opened up new avenues' for developing vaccines and therapies 'against infections, cancer and inflammatory diseases.'

Steinman was cited for his 'discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity' and in particular his discovery of a new cell type in 1973.

Beutler and Hoffmann were cited for discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity, the first step in the body's immune system.

Steinman, who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer four years ago, used the dendritic-cell based immunotherapy to extend his own life, according to the Rockefeller University.

He had been affiliated to the institute since 1970.

His daughter Alexis Steinman earlier said in a statement issued by the university that the family was 'touched that our father's many years of hard work are being recognized with a Nobel Prize.'

A dentritic cell 'serves as a kind of net,' that prepares the body for the next time it is threatened by an infection caused by bacteria, a virus, parasite or fungi, Annika Scheynius, professor of clinical allergy research and member of the Nobel Assembly told Swedish Radio.

The medicine prize is the first of the 2011 Nobels to be announced. The award ceremony is on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.

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