Immune system pioneers win 2011 medicine Nobel

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Three scientists who unlocked secrets of the body's immune system, opening doors to new vaccines and treatments for cancer, won the 2011 Nobel prize for medicine on Monday.

American Bruce Beutler and French biologist Jules Hoffmann, who studied the first stages of immune responses to attack, shared the $1.5 million award with Canadian-born Ralp Steinman, working in the United States, whose discovery of dendritic cells is the key to understanding the later stages.

"This year's Nobel laureates have revolutionised our understanding of the immune system by discovering key principles for its activation," the award panel at Sweden's Karolinska Institute said in a statement in Stockholm.

Lars Klareskog, who chairs the prize-giving Nobel Assembly, said: "I am very excited about what these discoveries mean. I think that we will have new, better vaccines against microbes and that is very much needed now with the increased resistance against antibiotics.

"I also expect that there will be some development in the area of attacking cancers from the self-immune system. There are some promising things there."

Annika Scheynius, a professor of clinical allergy research and a member of the panel, said: "We are definitely sure that these discoveries will lead to health improvement ... They can improve the health of patients with cancer, inflammatory diseases, auto-immune diseases, asthma."

Beutler, 53, is based at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Luxembourg-born Hoffmann, 70, conducted much of his work in Strasbourg. They will share half the 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.46 million) of prize-money. The rest goes to Steinman, 68, from Rockefeller University in New York.