Nobel Medicine Prize Awarded to Tumor Vaccine Developers

The Nobel Foundation has awarded Ralph Steinman of Canada, American Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffmann of France the Nobel Medicine Prize for their discoveries concerning the body’s immune responses. The work of all three scientists has been pivotal to the development of improved types of vaccines against infectious diseases and novel approaches to fighting cancer, and has helped lay the foundations for a new wave of therapeutic vaccines that stimulate the immune system to attack tumors.

Beutler and Hoffmann discovered in the 1990s that receptor proteins act as a first line of defense (innate immunity) by recognizing bacteria and other microorganisms. Steinman’s work explained how, if required, dendritic cells in the next phase (adaptive immunity) kill off infections that break through. Understanding dendritic cells led to the launch of the first therapeutic cancer vaccine in 2010, Dendreon’s Provenge, which treats men with advanced prostate cancer.

Unfortunately, Steinman died of pancreatic cancer three days before he could be told of his award and after using his own discoveries about dendritic-cellbased immunotherapy to extend his life. The Nobel Committee at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute said it does not typically make posthumous awards, but Steinman’s selection will stand because the committee was unaware of his death at the time of its announcement. Steinman’s prize money will go to his heirs, while Beutler and Hoffmann will share the other half of the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.46 million) prize.