Dr. Ralph M. Steinman: Nobel Laureate Who Discovered Dendritic Cells & Pioneered Basic and Translational Dendritic Cell Research
In this article, we capture the professional journey of Dr. Ralph M. Steinman, a physician, immunologist, and cell biologist who described the existence of dendritic cells in 1973. Dr. Steinman was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery of dendritic cells and contributions to dendritic cell research both basic and translational.
Who was Dr. Ralph M. Steinman?
Dr. Ralph Steinman was a Canadian physician who specialized as an immunologist and cell biologist. His ground-breaking basic research on the identification, purification, and extraction of dendritic cells was conducted at Rockefeller University in the US. Being a physician, he later advanced his research into the development of dendritic cell therapy, which was targeted at cancers, transplant rejection, and autoimmune diseases, all of which are mediated by immune processes.
Only a few individuals can pursue both basic and applied research on their discoveries in their professional careers. Dr. Steinman was one such stalwart in Immunology who accomplished this difficult feat. He could do so because he was a physician, whereas many scientists doing basic research are non-physicians and they have to work together with physicians for converting their basic science findings into clinical research.
Moreover, he was able to successfully apply the dendritic cell therapy on himself later in his life as a patient with pancreatic cancer. He also has another rare feat to his name. By the time his Nobel Prize was announced in 2011, he had died only three days back and the news of his death had not been circulated widely. The Nobel Prize is only awarded to living individuals but the case of Dr. Steinman was considered as a special case and his prize was still awarded despite his death.
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| Dr. Ralph M. Steinman. Image Credit: National Academy of Sciences, USA |
Qualifications of Dr. Ralph Steinman
Dr. Ralph Steinman was born in Quebec and completed his Science degree from McGill University. He received his medical qualification (MD) from Harvard Medical School. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He was strongly attracted to the science of immunology and cell biology and decided to pursue a non-clinical career in a research laboratory at Rockefeller University under the mentorship of Dr. Cohn and Hirsch, two of the greatest immunologists and cell biologists of that time. He began his career as a postdoctoral fellow and went on to become the Director of the laboratory.
Contributions of Dr. Ralph Steinman
For four decades, Dr. Ralph Steinman steered dendritic cell research with complete devotion and perfection, which included comprehensive research right from their identification to the development of anticancer therapy based on dendritic cells. Dendritic cell therapy is a type of immunotherapy, which offers hope to patients non-responsive to the conventional cancer treatments of chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation therapy.
Dr. Steinman's research laid the foundation for a greater understanding of the phenomenon of antigen presentation. Dendritic cells were recognized at the center of this phenomenon and recognized as the strongest modulators of adaptive immune responses and T cells. The recognition of dendritic cells contributed to our understanding of practically every immune disease, including transplant rejection, HIV, and autoimmune diseases. So, Dr. Steinman by discovering and pioneering Dendritic Cells research in effect laid the foundation of a very important basic and applied specialty in immunology.
He had approximately 450 scientific papers to his name. He was a scientific advisor to some of the most prestigious organizations in the domain of immunology, such as the Campbell Family Institute of Breast Cancer Research, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center for Immunology Research, Baylor Institute for Immunology Research, RIKEN Center for Allergy and Immunology Research, and CHAVI Center for HIV-AIDS Vaccine Immunology.
A Commentary on the Landmark Paper by Dr. Ralph Steinman on the Discovery of the Dendritic Cells
Legacy of Dr. Ralph Steinman
His contributions were recognized by the scientific community with innumerable awards, including the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 2011. Other notable awards conferred to Dr. Steinman included Friedrich-Sasse Prize, Emil von Behring Prize, Robert Koch Prize, Rudolf Virchow Medal, Coley Medal, Gairdner Foundation International Award, Albert Lasker Award, Albany Medical Prize, and A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine.
In his honor, the Ralph M. Steinman Center for Cancer Vaccines was established at the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research in Texas. The Steinman Family Foundation, a charitable foundation in his name created by his family continues to support the careers of young scientists and science education. Dr. Steinman's works continue to inspire generations of immunologists to discover newer vaccines and treatments targeting several immunological processes.
References and Suggested Reading
About the author
Dr. Naval Asija is a licensed MBBS Physician from India. MBBS is the equivalent of the MD degree offered by international medical schools. He is based in Delhi, India, and works as a medical writer, editor, and consultant. He supports medical researchers as an author's editor, medical communication companies involved in medico-marketing activities, and medical technology companies in improving their products. He can be contacted via his LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/navalasija/
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