The winners of Nobel Prize 2001 in Medicine or Physiology are:
Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffman
for they discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity
and Ralph Steinman
for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity
On the Nobel Prize internet site we can read the key publications of the Nobel:
| Poltorak A, He X, Smirnova I, Liu MY, Van Huffel C, Du X, Birdwell D, Alejos E, Silva M, Galanos C, Freudenberg M, Ricciardi-Castagnoli P, Layton B, Beutler B. Defective LPS signaling in C3H/HeJ and C57BL/10ScCr mice: Mutations in Tlr4 gene. Science 1998;282:2085-2088. |
| Lemaitre B, Nicolas E, Michaut L, Reichhart JM, Hoffmann JA. The dorsoventral regulatory gene cassette spätzle/Toll/cactus controls the potent antifungal response in drosophila adults. Cell 1996;86:973-983. |
| Steinman RM, Cohn ZA. Identification of a novel cell type in peripheral lymphoid organs of mice. J Exp Med 1973;137:1142-1162. |
| Steinman RM, Witmer MD. Lymphoid dendritic cells are potent stimulators of the primary mixed leukocyte reaction in mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1978;75:5132-5136. |
| Schuler G, Steinman RM. Murine epidermal Langerhans cells mature into potent immunostimulatory dendritic cells in vitro. J Exp Med 1985;161:526-546. |