The 2011 Nobel Prize for medicine goes to Luxembourg-born Jules Hoffmann and American immunologist Bruce Beutler, who share it with Canadian Ralph Steinman for their revolutionary findings concerning the activation of the immune system.

Hoffmann and Beutler were rewarded for their discoveries concerning the activation innate immunity and receive half of the prize money - an amount equal to 1.1 Million Euro, while Steinman was honored with the other half for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity. “This year's Nobel Laureates have revolutionized our understanding of the immune system by discovering key principles for its activation”, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute says in its statement. Steinman died a few days ago and it isn't clear yet if he will receive the prize posthumously.

Jules A. Hoffmann was born in Echternach, Luxembourg in 1941. He studied at the University of Strasbourg in France, where he obtained his PhD in 1969. After postdoctoral training at the University of Marburg, Germany, he returned to Strasbourg, where he headed a research laboratory from 1974 to 2009. He has also served as director of the Institute for Molecular Cell Biology in Strasbourg and during 2007-2008 as President of the French National Academy of Sciences.

Hoffmann made his pioneering discovery in 1996, when he and his co-workers investigated how fruit flies combat infections”, the Assembly explains. Hoffmann has received numerous prestigious awards including the Rosenstiel Award for Immunity (2010), the Prix Keyo of Medicine (2011), 2011 Gairdner Award in Medical Sciences, and the 2011 Shaw Prize in Life Sciences and Medicine. Jules Hoffmann is also Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.

Hoffmann was the keynote speaker at the 2008 “rentrée académique” of the University of Luxembourg (see our picture). In his function as President of the French Academy of Sciences, he spoke about the scientific progress in the past 50 years.

The official award celebration will take place on 10 December 2011, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel.