Monday, October 3, 2011

Nobel prize winner dies before announcement

A scientist who won the Medicine Nobel prize for work to find a cure against cancer died of the same illness just three days before he was made the recipient of his award.

Canadian-born Ralph Steinman, 68, 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" honor.

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 American Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffmann of France.

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." Hansson told Swedish news agency TT the panel would review what to do with the prize money, due to rules against posthumous awards. But it would not name a substitute winner.

"The Nobel Foundation has recognized Ralph Steinman for his seminal discoveries concerning the body's immune responses," said Rockerfeller University president Marc Tessier-Lavigne. "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," he added.

The institution said in a statement: "Steinman passed away on September 30. He was 68. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer four years ago, and his life was extended using a dendritic-cell based immunotherapy of his own design."

Alexis Steinman, indicating that her father had not known on his deathbed of the impending decision in Stockholm, said: "We are all so touched that our father's many years of hard work are being recognized with a Nobel Prize. He devoted his life to his work and his family and he would be truly honored."

Beutler and Hoffmann, who studied the first stages of the body's immune responses to attack in the 1990s, shared the $1.5 million award with Steinman, originally from Montreal, whose discovery of dendritic cells in the 1970s is key to understanding the body's next line of defense against disease.

"This year's Nobel laureates have revolutionized our understanding of the immune system by discovering key principles for its activation," the award panel at Sweden's Karolinska Institute said in a statement in Stockholm.

Medicine, or physiology, is usually the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year. Prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel.

The award citation noted that the world's scientists had long been searching for the "gatekeepers" of immune response. Hoffmann's pioneering research was conducted on fruit flies, highlighting how key elements of modern human biology have been conserved through evolution.