Ralph Steinman, (1943-2011) died three days before he got the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2011

[BSIT07-01]

"Alas, Ralph Steinman is dead. He died three days before he got the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2011. He dropped out of no college, he did not make a billion dollar company. He did not make billions of dollars, nor even hundreds of millions, though after his death his estate would receive slightly more than a million dollars of the prize money. Yet, he had touched millions, possibly hundreds of millions of lives and will likely touch billions of men women and children in future generations by discoverying one of the secrets of how immunity against viruses or bacteria are translated into an immune response by adaptation of immune cells. How allergy or autoimmune diseases develop, and how immune cells transmit signales to one another. It is possible that it was the fruits of his research that might have extended the life, after pancreatic cancer several years ago, of another giant who died recently. It is also certain that his work has resulted into billions of dollars worth of pharmaceutical industry, and will produce many billions of dollars worth of pharmaceutical industry, and will produce many billions in the future, Such is the reach of a humble life in fundamental science."

Nobel winner used his discovery to keep his own cancer at bay




R alph Steinman shared this year's Nobel prize in medicine for his work on understanding how the human body's immune system responds to infection.
But the announcement was soon tinged with sadness and controversy when it emerged that Steinman had died just before the award was made public.
Nobel rules do not allow the prize to be awarded posthumously unless the announcement is made before a person's death. But given that the mistake was made in good faith (Steinman, who had cancer, was contacted last week, only for his condition to deteriorate rapidly), it has been decided that the award will stand.

As a result, Steinman has posthumously been awarded half the prize (about $760,000) and the other half will be divided between the two other winners, American Bruce Beutler and French scientist Jules Hoffmann.
The Canadian-born Steinman discovered and named the immune system's dendritic cells, and showed how science could harness their power to fight infections and other diseases.
However, although he and his mentor, Zanvil Cohn, discovered dendritic cells in 1972, it was another six years before the cells' role in initiating the immune response was more fully understood; and nearly another 20 years before it was generally accepted. For much of that time, his dendritic cell theory was met with disbelief.
This was partly because other scientists were unable to reproduce Steinman's results. Only when developments in tissue culture methods yielded cells in larger numbers did others agree with Steinman that the cells were the primers of the immune system.
Today the therapeutic properties of dendritic cells are being investigated in clinical trials for cancer therapy and early-stage trials of a vaccine for AIDS.
Ralph Marvin Steinman was born on January 14, 1943 at Sherbrooke, Quebec. He won a scholarship to study science at McGill University in Montreal, graduating in 1963, and earned another degree from Harvard Medical School five years later, also on a scholarship.
After an internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, he joined Rockefeller University in 1970 as a post-doctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Immunology.
Working with Cohn, he began research on the primary white cells of the immune system which in various ways identify, arrest and destroy infectious micro-organisms and tumour cells.
Later he researched the role of dendritic cells in the onset of several immune responses, including graft rejection, resistance to tumours, auto-immune diseases and infections, including AIDS. He and Cohn coined the term dendritic using the Greek root "dendron" (tree), a reference to the cells' branch-like projections.
Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer four years ago, Steinman extended his lifespan by having treatment using a dendritic cell-based immunotherapy based on his research.
But he was unable to prolong his life sufficiently to learn that he had been awarded the Nobel prize. Indeed, his family discovered he had received the award only when they checked his mobile telephone to find a message from the Nobel committee.
Ralph Steinman is survived by his wife, Claudia, their twin daughters and son, and his mother.