Canadian Scientist Dies Just Days Before Receiving Nobel Prize For Medicine

Canadian scientist Ralph Steinman had expected to be awarded in earlier years, but when the news of his Nobel Prize for Medicine win was communicated on Monday, he had already passed away.

The 68-year-old cell biologist's own discoveries helped extend his life but he died Friday after a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer, his daughter told AFP.

Nobel Prize for Medicine to be Announced Tomorrow
This year's Nobel season is set to kick off with the Medicine Prize to be announced on Monday.

"We said to him, 'Hang on until Monday,'" said Alexis Steinman, 34. "We joked, we said, 'You know you got to keep going until the Nobel.'"

She said the family was only alerted to Steinman's win when her mother discovered an email on his cell phone, which had been "turned to silent."

His hopes were raised a few years ago when he heard he was on the short list for the Nobel Prize. He did not win that year, she recalled, but the family has considered the possibility every year since.

Nobel Prize Winner's Vision Makes Him Read in 2 Colours at the Same Time
Milan, Italy, 9 March 2011 – The Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman once wrote in his autobiographical book (What do you care what other people think?): When I see

Steinman shared the award with Bruce Beutler of the United States and Luxembourg-born Jules Hoffmann, a naturalized French citizen, for their work on the body's complex defense system in which signaling molecules unleash antibodies and killer cells to respond to invading microbes.

"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. Our thoughts are with Ralph's wife, children and family," said Marc Tessier-Lavigne, president of the New York-based Rockefeller University where he worked.

Past Nobel Prize Winner Heads The Literary Prize List
Japanese author Kenzaburo Oe, winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature,heads the longlist for the Man Asian Literary Prize, it was announced.

The university said in a statement it was also "delighted" to learn of the Nobel honor, and added Steinman's "life was extended using a dendritic cell-based immunotherapy of his own design."

The Nobel committee in Stockholm, Sweden said it would stand by the award, even though it is typically not given out posthumously.

IVF Pioneer Robert Edwards Wins Nobel Prize for Medicine
Robert Edwards of Britain won the Nobel Medicine Prize Monday for the development of in vitro fertilisation.

"We just got the information. What we can do now is only to regret that he could not experience the joy," Goeran Hansson, the head of the Nobel assembly at Karolinska Institutet, was quoted as saying by the Swedish news agency TT.

According to the committee's rules, "work produced by a person since deceased shall not be considered for an award. If, however, a prizewinner dies before he has received the prize, then the prize may be presented."

Steinman was born in Montreal, Canada on January 14, 1943, and earned his medical degree from Harvard University in 1968.

He and his collaborator Zanvil Cohn discovered in 1973 a new cell type called the dendritic cell.

Steinman "speculated that it could be important in the immune system and went on to test whether dendritic cells could activate T cells, a cell type that has a key role in adaptive immunity," said the Nobel committee.

"These findings were initially met with skepticism but subsequent work by Steinman demonstrated that dendritic cells have a unique capacity to activate T cells."

Tessier-Lavigne said his research "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."

Steinman began work at Rockefeller University in 1970 as a postdoctoral fellow and was named director of the Christopher Browne Center for Immunology and Immune Diseases in 1998.

He received a host of honors during his life, including the 2007 Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the 2009 Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, which he shared with Beutler.

"I think it is a great tragedy that he didn't live quite long enough to know that he had won the Nobel Prize," Beutler told AFP.

"He had received many other prestigious awards," he added. "He knew he was in line for it (a Nobel), that's for sure."

Steinman's daughter, Alexis, said the family was moved by the news of the prestigious prize.

"He was always hopeful... but he was a very humble man. He said, 'There are all these great scientists out there, they will pick some one else," she told AFP.

"He was sick and he thought that his time had passed."

Source-AFP