Ralph M. Steinman, a Nobel Recipient for Research on Immunology, Dies at 68
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: October 3, 2011
Dr. Ralph M. Steinman, a cell biologist who was named one of three winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine on Monday for his work on the human immune response, died Friday in Manhattan, a fact unknown to the prize committee when it made its announcement. He was 68.
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| Rockefeller University, via Getty Images Dr. Ralph M. Steinman died three days before the Nobel Committee announced that he was a winner of this year's prize in medicine |
The cause was pancreatic cancer, his daughter Lesley said.
Dr. Steinman, the director of the Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Immunology at Rockefeller University and a senior physician at the Rockefeller University Hospital, shared the award with Bruce A. Beutler, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and the Scripps Research Center in San Diego, and Jules A. Hoffmann, a former research director of the National Center for Scientific Research in Strasbourg, France. The three scientists were honored for discovering the essential steps in the immune system’s response to infection.
In 1973, Dr. Steinman and Dr. Zanvil A. Cohn discovered a new class of cells, known as dendritic cells, that play a critical role in activating the body’s adaptive immune system, and his subsequent research led to a new understanding of how they function.
“Ralph’s research has laid the foundation for numerous discoveries in the critically important field of immunology, and it has led to innovative new approaches in how we treat cancer, infectious diseases and disorders of the immune system,” said Marc Tessier-Lavigne, the president of Rockefeller University, in a statement published on the university’s Web site.
Dr. Steinman, who had been suffering from pancreatic cancer for four years, had been undergoing treatment using a pioneering immunotherapy based on his own research. Dendritic cells from his body were deployed to mount an assault on his cancer.
“He was very enthusiastic about the possibilities of immunotherapy,” Lesley Steinman said. “As soon as he was diagnosed, he said, ‘I’m going to get right on this with some things I’ve been working on.’ ”
Dr. Steinman’s research extended the insights made possible by Dr. Hoffmann’s discovery, in 1996, of cell receptors in fruit flies that are activated by pathogenic bacteria or fungi, and Dr. Beutler’s identification of cell receptors in mice, genetically similar to the receptors in fruit flies, that can cause septic shock when stimulated.
The receptors studied by Dr. Hoffmann and Dr. Beutler act as a first line of defense in the immune response by recognizing potentially harmful bacteria and other microorganisms. Dr. Steinman focused on the dendritic cells that play a critical role in adaptive immunity, activating T-cells that help the body mount a defense against infections that breach the first line of defense.
Dr. Steinman was awarded half the prize, which totals $1.45 million, and the other half was divided between the two other winners, but the award was called into question because the rules governing the Nobel Prize do not allow it to be awarded posthumously unless death occurs after the announcement is made.
Citing this exception, the prize committee announced Monday that the award would stand. “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.
Ralph Marvin Steinman was born on Jan. 14, 1943, in Montreal. He received a bachelor of science degree from McGill University in 1963 and a degree from Harvard Medical School in 1968.
After completing an internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, he joined Rockefeller University in 1970 as a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Immunology. Working with Dr. Cohn, he began researching the primary white cells of the immune system — the large macrophages and the highly specific lymphocytes — which operate in a variety of ways to spot, apprehend and destroy infectious microorganisms and tumor cells.
He later concentrated on the role of dendritic cells in the onset of several immune responses, including graft rejection, resistance to tumors, autoimmune diseases and infections, including AIDS. He and Dr. Cohn coined the term, whose Greek root, “dendron,” or “tree,” refers to the branched projections that the cells develop.
Dr. Steinman lived in Westport, Conn. In addition to his daughter Lesley, of Seattle, he is survived by his wife, the former Claudia Hoeffel; his mother, Nettie, of Montreal; a son, Adam, of Brooklyn; another daughter, Alexis, of Los Angeles; two brothers, Seymour, of Montreal, and Mark, of Toronto; a sister, Joni, of Toronto; and three grandchildren.
See link for Nobel prize announcement:-
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2011/press.html#
This article taken from:-
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/science/04steinman.html#h[]
