A San Diego-based American was on of the three scientists who won a 2011 Nobel prize for ground-breaking research on the immune system.
Bruce Beutler of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, as well as Luxembourg-born Jules Hoffmann based in France and Candian-born Ralph Steinman based in New York, will share the prize of 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.46 million) for research that has improved types of vaccines against infectious diseases and helped develop types of cancer treatment.
Beutler's Canadian colleauge, Steiman, has been dead for three days. The Nobel committee had been unaware of his death until Rockefeller University announced it several hours after the news of the award came out Friday morning.
The Canadian scientist died on Sept. 30 of pancreatic cancer, according to the university, which said he had been treated with immunotherapy based on his discovery of dendritic cells two decades earlier. He was 68.
The cells help regulate adaptive immunity, an immune system response that purges invading microorganisms from the body.
Nobel officials said they believed it was the first time that a laureate had died before the announcement without the committee's knowledge.
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