John Wiley & Sons, Inc., (NYSE:JWa) (NYSE:JWb), is pleased to learn that the award of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been confirmed by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet. The award is divided, with one half to the late Professor Ralph M. Steinman and the other half jointly to Professor Bruce A. Beutler and Dr. Jules A. Hoffmann. All three laureates are published Wiley authors.

Professor Bruce A. Beutler of the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA and Dr. Jules A. Hoffmann of the University of Strasbourg, France were awarded the Nobel Prize for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity.  Professor Ralph M. Steinman of the Rockefeller University, NYC, USA was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity. Sadly Professor Steinman died shortly before the announcement of the award.

Professor Steinman was a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Immunology, published on behalf of the British Society of Immunology.

“The news this week of Ralph Steinman was a great loss to the immunological community, mixed with our great pride in his Nobel Prize. Ralph, a long-standing member of our editorial board, was a great friend of many UK immunologists. His insights into dendritic cell biology and its role in shaping immunity were far ahead of their time.” said Professor Danny Altmann, Imperial College, London and Editor in Chief, Immunology.

“We are saddened by the death of Professor Steinman, and we send our condolences to his family. We are proud that he chose to work with us to share his research with scholarly communities and the world.” said Andy Robinson, Vice President & Managing Director, Health Sciences, Wiley-Blackwell.

Professor Steinman also contributed to four Wiley books including; writing the introduction to Handbook of Dendritic Cells: Biology, Diseases and Therapies; co-editing Cancer Vaccines and Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 1062, Human Immunology: Patient-Based Research; and co-authoring a chapter in Ciba Foundation Symposium 92 - Membrane Recycling. Professor Steinman has also published in the journals Annals of the NY Academy of Science, Stem Cells, International Journal of Cancer, Immunological Reviews, Hepatology, European Journal of Immunology, Apmis, American Journal of Anatomy, BioEssays, Immunology, The Journal of Comparative Neurology, Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology, and Clinical and Experimental Immunology.

A video podcast is available of Professor Steinman when he was a guest editor of a special issue of Immunological Reviews on dendritic cells in March 2010, discussing dendritic cell research beginning with the studies that led to his Nobel winning discovery of these cells in 1973.  An interview with Professor Steinman from 2007 and a collection of recent key articles on dendritic cells published in the European Journal of Immunology are also available.

Dr. Hoffman is an Editorial Board member for the European Journal of Immunology, and has published in European Journal of Biochemistry (now: FEBS Journal), BioEssays, Archives of Insect Biochemistry and Physiology, Immunological Reviews, Cellular Microbiology, and Insect Molecular Biology. Dr. Hoffman was also the guest editor of a 2004 issue of Immunological Reviews focussing on Primitive Immune Systems.

Professor Beutler has published in the journals Tissue Antigens, Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift (ceased), Annals of the NY Academy of Science, Biometrical Journal, British Journal of Hematology, Traffic, Annals of Human Genetics, European Journal of Immunology,  Nutrition Reviews, and Immunological Reviews.

“We congratulate all of the laureates on this global recognition of their work and their pioneering discoveries in immunology, leading to advances in disease treatment which benefit us all” said Dr. Mike Davis, Vice President & Managing Director, Life Sciences, Wiley-Blackwell.