Nobels: Toll pioneers deserve recognition

Allison, James P.; Benoist, Christophe; Chervonsky, Alexander V.

doi:10.1038/479178a

Correspondence
Published: 09 November 2011

Nobels: Toll pioneers deserve recognition

James P. Allison¹,
Christophe Benoist² &
Alexander V. Chervonsky³^na1

Nature volume 479, page 178 (2011) Cite this article

8649 Accesses
5 Citations
61 Altmetric
Metrics details

Immunologists are delighted that the field of innate immunity has been recognized by this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. However, we believe that the Nobel Committee should also have acknowledged the seminal contributions of immunologists Charles A. Janeway Jr (1943–2003) and Ruslan Medzhitov.

Janeway laid out the major theory that unifies the principles of innate and adaptive immunity (C. A. Janeway Cold Spring Harb. Symp. Quant. Biol. 54, 1–13; 1989), later experimentally verified with Medzhitov and then by many others. He recognized that antigen alone is insufficient to elicit an adaptive immune response, and postulated that both primitive and higher animals have specialized 'pattern-recognition receptors' that induce the innate immune response when activated by a particular class of conserved microbial products ('pathogen-associated molecular patterns').

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

Purchase on SpringerLink
Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Subjects

Author information

Alexander V. Chervonsky: ^*On behalf of 23 co-signatories listed alphabetically.

Authors and Affiliations

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA
James P. Allison
Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Christophe Benoist
University of Chicago, Illinois, USA
Alexander V. Chervonsky

Authors

James P. Allison
View author publications
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Christophe Benoist
View author publications
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Alexander V. Chervonsky
View author publications
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexander V. Chervonsky.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (PDF 89 kb) (download PDF )

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Allison, J., Benoist, C. & Chervonsky, A. Nobels: Toll pioneers deserve recognition. Nature 479, 178 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/479178a

Download citation

Published: 09 November 2011
Issue date: 10 November 2011
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/479178a

Comments

Commenting on this article is now closed.

Miguel Soares 10 November 2011, 06:21

I would like to suggest, in keeping with Nature comments Community Guidelines, that those that agree with the content of NATURE | CORRESPONDENCE:
Nobels: Toll pioneers deserve recognition by James P. Allison, Christophe Benoist&#009 & Alexander V. Chervonsky. Nature 479, 178 (10 November 2011) doi:10.1038/479178a Published online 09 November 2011
Please add your signature as a novel comment:
Name: Miguel Soares, Ph.D
Affiliation: Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Rua da Quinta Grande, 6, 2780-156 Oeiras, Portugal
Phone: 351-214464520
E.mail: mpsoares@igc.gulbenkian.pt
Web Page: http://www.igc.gulbenkian.p...
Stephen Jameson 14 November 2011, 10:02

I'd like to add my support for recognition of Medzhitov and Janeway in the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. It is hard to overestimate the impact of their findings in the field of immunology, and it was a shock not to see Medzhitov's name among this year's awardees.
Barbara Kee 14 November 2011, 11:19

I would like to add my signature to this comment. The scientific and general public discussion on the discovery of Toll-like receptors requires acknowledgment of the seminal contributions of Medzhitov and Janeway.
Bernat Olle 16 November 2011, 13:14

I agree with the correspondence and would like to add my signature:
Name: Bernat Olle, Ph.D.
Affiliation: PureTech Ventures
500 Boylston Street, Suite 1600
Boston, MA 02116
bolle@puretechventures.com
James Moon 23 November 2011, 12:47

It seems to me that this Nobel really should have been two. One should have been awarded a long time ago to Steinman for dendritic cells, and this one for Toll-like receptors should have gone to Beutler, Hoffman, and Medzhitov (Janeway deserving too, but ineligible due to his death). These are two distinct findings that have both had a tremendous impact in the field of immunology and applied medicine.