The pioneering work of Jules Hoffmann opened a vast field of research to multiple developments, as evidenced for example, several articles of the next issue of médecine/sciences (n°10, Volume 27, October 2011) (in press) :
– The Editorial by William Darrasse-Jeze and David Klatzmann
– and two review articles by Daniel Olive and Caroline Robert

• Immunothérapie des cancers : une lueur au bout du tunnel ?
  Guillaume Darrasse-Jèze, David Klatzmann
• Rôle de CTLA-4 dans la cosignalisation négative du système immunitaire
  Daniel Olive, Suong le Thi, Luc Xerri, Ivan Hirsch, Jacques A. Nunès/li>
• Anticorps anti-CTLA-4 : une avancée thérapeutique majeure dans le traitement du mélanome métastatique
  Caroline Robert, Christine Mateus

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2011 shall be divided, with one half jointly to Bruce A. Beutler and Jules A. Hoffmann for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity and the other half to Ralph M. Steinman for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity.

The discoveries of Jules Hoffmann, emeritus director of research at CNRS, Professor at the University of Strasbourg, allowed revolutionize the understanding of the immune system by revealing the main key to its activation.

Jules Hoffmann - winner of the Gold Medal of the CNRS in 2011 - has dedicated its work to the study of genetic and molecular mechanisms responsible for innate immunity in insects. His many discoveries have brought about a new vision of defense mechanisms that organisms, the most primitive to the man, against infectious agents.

After university studies in Strasbourg where he obtained a PhD in experimental biology, he joined the CNRS in 1964 and created the CNRS "Immune response and development in insects" which he directed until 2006. The laboratory is part of the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of CNRS which he was also director from 1994 to 2006. President of the French Academy of Sciences in 2007 and 2008, Jules Hoffmann is also a member of the Academies of Sciences of the United States, Germany and Russia. He has received numerous other prestigious awards as recently 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.

Nobelprize.org