Stockholm, October 3
Three scientists who unlocked secrets of the body’s immune system, opening doors to new vaccines and cancer treatments, won the 2011 Nobel prize for medicine today.

American Bruce Beutler and French biologist Jules Hoffmann, who studied the first stages of immune responses to attack, share the $1.5 million award with Canadian-born Ralph Steinman, whose discovery of dendritic cells in the 1970s is key to understanding the body’s next line of defence against disease.

However, Steinman was not lucky enough to taste the fruit of his success. He won the Nobel for medicine for work on fighting cancer, but died of the disease himself just three days before he could be told of his award, and after using his own discoveries to extend his life.

The Canadian-born scientist had been treating himself with a groundbreaking therapy based on his own research into the body’s immune system but died on Friday after a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer. His colleagues at Rockefeller University in New York called it a “bittersweet” honour.

The Nobel Committee at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, which does not make posthumous awards, said it was aware of Steinman’s death; but it appeared that it had not known before making its announcement. It is likely that Steinman died without being aware he had won science’s ultimate accolade, along with Beutler and Hoffmann.

Swedish officials on the Nobel Committee were rushing to try to clarify what secretary general Goran Hansson, called a “unique situation, because he died hours before the decision was made”. — Reuters