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The 2011 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine is won by three doctors for their work with vaccines targeting cancer.
(SOUNDBITE)(English) SECRETARY-GENERAL TO THE NOBEL COMMITTEE GORAN HANSSON
"The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute has today decided that the 2011 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine shall be divided with one half jointly to Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffmann for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity and the other half to Ralph Steinman for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity."
Beutler, Hoffmann and Steinmen's discoveries are at the forefront of new "therapeutic vaccines" that help the immune system target tumors.
(SOUNDBITE)(English) PROFESSOR H-G LJUNGGREN SAYING:
"They have provided novel insights into disease mechanisms. They have opened up new avenues for prevention and therapy related research within infectious diseases, cancer, inflammation, auto-immunity and vaccine development."
They are also crucial in the development of improved vaccines.
(SOUNDBITE)(English) LARS KLARESKOG, PROFESSOR OF RHEUMATOLOGY SAYING:
"Well, I'm very excited about what these discoveries mean. I think that we will have new and better vaccines against microbes and that is very much needed now with the increased resistance against anti-biotics. We need better vaccines to have the own immune system of ours to defend ourselves better against bacteria and then I expect that there will be some development in the area of attacking cancers from the immune system."
The award for achievements in medicine is traditionally the first Nobel Prize awarded every year.
Jessica Gray, Reuters
