Ralph M. Steinman

Ralph M. Steinman was a Canadian-American immunologist who discovered dendritic cells and shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work on the immune system.

Zanvil A. Cohn: Zanvil A. Cohn was an American cell biologist who studied macrophages and directed Rockefeller University’s Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Immunology. Cohn supervised Steinman’s doctoral work and coauthored the 1973 paper identifying dendritic cells.
Dendritic cell: An antigen-presenting immune cell that activates T cells and helps initiate adaptive immune responses. This was the distinctive cell type Steinman discovered and investigated throughout his career.
Dendritic cell vaccine: An immunotherapy that uses antigen-loaded dendritic cells to stimulate targeted immune responses. Steinman investigated dendritic-cell-based approaches to vaccination and treatment.
Adaptive immunity: The antigen-specific immune response mediated chiefly by B and T lymphocytes and capable of immunological memory. Steinman’s findings clarified how dendritic cells initiate this branch of immunity.
Jules A. Hoffmann: Jules A. Hoffmann is a French immunologist whose research on innate immunity earned a share of the 2011 Nobel Prize. Hoffmann shared the Nobel Prize with Steinman and Bruce Beutler for discoveries about innate immunity.
Antigen presentation: The display of peptide fragments bound to major histocompatibility complex molecules for recognition by T cells. Dendritic cells present antigens to T cells, explaining how Steinman’s discovery bears on immune activation.
Cancer immunotherapy: Cancer treatment that uses or modifies immune responses to recognize and attack tumors. Steinman’s research helped motivate therapeutic strategies that enlist dendritic cells against cancer.
Innate immunity: The rapid, broadly responsive branch of immunity that detects common features of pathogens and tissue damage. Dendritic cells connect innate sensing to the adaptive responses Steinman studied.
Bruce Beutler: Bruce Beutler is an American immunologist whose research on Toll-like receptors earned a share of the 2011 Nobel Prize. Beutler’s Nobel-recognized work on innate immunity complemented Steinman’s discoveries about adaptive immune activation.
T cell: A lymphocyte that recognizes specific antigens and coordinates or carries out adaptive immune responses. Steinman showed that dendritic cells are exceptionally effective at activating these adaptive immune cells.

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