Nobel Prize Winners 2011 - Physiology or Medicine

2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Nobel medicine prize honors work on body's defenses

Bruce Beutler (middle) with colleagues in the lab
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2011/beutler-photo.html 

This year, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Bruce Beutler, Jules Hoffman, and Ralph Steinman. Beutler and Hoffman researched innate immunity, the non-specific initial response to foreign microorganisms that starts inflammation. Steinman investigated the role of dendritic cells in adaptive immunity, which is a specialized response to foreign microorganisms that occurs after the initial, non-specific response. Adaptive immunity results in the production of antibodies and killer cells that attack infected cells.  After the initial response to a certain pathogen, we develop a resistance to it for future exposures due to adaptive immunity. 


This has allowed for improvement in vaccines as well as a better understanding in stimulating the immune response to cancer. Their research has led to the development of a new kind of "therapeutic vaccines" that can cause the immune system to fight tumors. This new information can also help researchers who are attempting to figure out a way to lessen the response of the immune system when it exhibits excessive enthusiasm, resulting in too much autoimmunity and inflammation. This is the case with autoimmune inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes. Research on dendritic cells has led to the launch of the first ever therapeutic cancer vaccine, which treats advanced prostate cancer.