2011年度诺贝尔生理学或医学奖编辑本段回目录
据报道，来自瑞典卡罗琳医学院的消息称，2011年度诺贝尔生理学或医学奖由三人分享。其中一半奖励布鲁斯·巴特勒(Bruce A. Beutler)和朱尔斯·霍夫曼(Jules A. Hoffmann)在激活先天免疫方面的发现。另外一半奖励拉尔夫·斯坦曼(Ralph M. Steinman)“发现树状细胞和它在适应性免疫中的作用”。
此前曾获得拉斯克奖的中国科学家屠呦呦无缘本届生理学或医学奖。
个人简介编辑本段回目录
Bruce A. Beutler (born 29 December 1957 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American immunologist and geneticist. Together with Jules A. Hoffmann, he received one-half of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for "their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity" (the other half went to Ralph M. Steinman for "his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity").
Beutler is a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Genetics at The Scripps Research Institute, in La Jolla, California, USA. His father, Ernest Beutler, a hematologist and medical geneticist, was also a Professor and Department Chairman at Scripps.
Between 1959 and 1977, Beutler lived in Southern California. He received his secondary school education at Polytechnic School in Pasadena, CA. He attended college at the University of California, San Diego, graduating at the age of 18 in 1976. He enrolled in medical school at the University of Chicago in 1977 and received his M.D. degree in 1981 at the age of 23.
During his childhood and early adolescent years, Beutler developed a lasting interest in biological science. Some of his formative experiences in biology included studies in the laboratory of his father, and later, in the laboratory of Susumu Ohno, a mammalian geneticist known for his work on evolution, genome structure, and sex differentiation. In addition, he worked in the laboratories of Abraham Braude, an expert in the biology of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), also known as endotoxin, and Patricia Spear, an authority on Herpes simplex virus. Later, Beutler was to perform extensive research on both LPS and herpesviruses, aimed principally at understanding inborn host resistance to infectious diseases, often referred to as innate immunity.
Academic positionsFrom 1981 to 1983 Beutler continued his medical training at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX as an intern in the Department of Internal Medicine, and as a resident in the Department of Neurology. Between 1983 and 1985 he was a postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University in the laboratory of Anthony Cerami. He became an Assistant Professor at Rockefeller University in 1985. He was also an Associate Physician at the Rockefeller University Hospital between 1984 and 1986.
Beutler returned to Dallas in 1986 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, and an Assistant Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where he retained a position for the next 14 years. He became an Associate Professor and an Associate Investigator with HHMI in 1990, and a Professor in 1996.
In 2000, Beutler moved to The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, as a Professor in the Department of Immunology. In 2007, he became Chairman of the newly created Department of Genetics at Scripps.
Scientific contributionsBeutler is best known for his pioneering molecular and genetic studies of inflammation and innate immunity. He was the first to isolate mouse tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF), and to demonstrate the inflammatory potential of this cytokine, proving its important role in endotoxin-induced shock. Subsequently, he invented recombinant molecules expressly designed to neutralize TNF, fusing the binding portion of TNF receptor proteins to the heavy chain of an immunoglobulin molecule to force receptor dimerization. These molecules were later used extensively as the drug Etanercept in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, psoriasis, and other forms of inflammation.
Interested in the mechanism by which LPS activates mammalian immune cells, Beutler used TNF production as a phenotypic endpoint to identify the LPS receptor. Identification of the receptor hinged on the positional cloning of the mammalian Lps locus, which had been known since the 1960s as a key genetic determinant of all biological responses to LPS. Beutler thus discovered the key sensors of microbial infection in mammals, demonstrating that one of the mammalian Toll-like receptors, TLR4, acts as the membrane-spanning component of the mammalian LPS receptor complex.[6] The TLRs (of which ten are now known to exist in humans) are now widely known to function in the perception of microbes, each detecting signature molecules that herald infection. These receptors also mediate severe illness, including shock and systemic inflammation as it occurs in the course of an infection. They are central to the pathogenesis of sterile inflammatory and autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus.
The positional cloning of Lps was completed in 1998. Beutler thereafter continued to apply a forward genetic approach to the analysis of immunity in mammals. In this process, germline mutations that alter immune function are created through a random process using the alkylating agent ENU, detected by their phenotypic effects, and then isolated by positional cloning. His work disclosed numerous essential signaling molecules required for the innate immune response, and helped to delineate the biochemistry of innate immunity.
ENU mutagenesis was also used by Beutler and colleagues to study the global response to a defined infectious agent. By screening mutant mice for susceptibility to mouse cytomegalovirus (MCMV), they identified a large number of genes that make a life-or-death difference during infection, and termed this set of genes the MCMV "resistome". These genes fall into "sensing," "signaling," "effector," "homeostatic," and "developmental" categories, and some of them were wholly unexpected. For example, ion channels in the smooth muscle of the coronary arteries serve an essential homeostatic role during infection by this microbe, and mutations that affect them cause sudden death during infection.
In the course of their work, Beutler and his colleagues identified genes required for other important biological processes, including the regulation of iron absorption, hearing, and embryonic development, since their disruption by ENU created strikingly abnormal visible phenotypes.
Awards and recognitionBeutler has been elected to numerous honorary academic societies. These include the United States National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. Beutler is also an Associate Member (foreign associate) of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), and a member of the Association of American Physicians, and the American Society for Clinical Investigation.
Bruce Beutler教授加盟aTyr Pharma科学顾问委员会编辑本段回目录
这位炎症领域的领先科学家是突破性生物疗法的发现者
圣迭戈2009年8月7日电 /美通社亚洲/ -- aTyr Pharma 今天宣布，The psResearchInstitute（简称“TSRI”）遗传学系系主任兼教授 BruceBeutler医学博士加盟了该公司科学顾问委员会。Beutler 博士是美国国家科学院 (National Academy ofSciences)和医学研究所 (Institute of Medicine) 的资深会员，曾荣获美国最大且最富声望的医学奖项之一2009Albany MedicalCenterPrize（2009年奥尔巴尼医学中心奖），该奖项是对其为人们对免疫系统的了解以及将研究转化成减轻了数百万炎症性疾病患者痛苦的疗法所作出贡献的认可。Beutler博士是有史以来开发的最成功的生物疗法原型Enbrel(R) -- 用于治疗类风湿关节炎等炎症性疾病的肿瘤坏死因子 (TNF)重组抑制剂 -- 的发明者。
aTyr Pharma 发现的抗炎症以及其它症状的候选药物建立在 tRNA 合成酶自然生成的新型蛋白片断之上。aTyrPharma首席执行官 Jeff Watkins 解释 Beutler 博士加盟 aTyr Pharma的重大意义时表示：“tRNA合成酶在蛋白质合成中起着非常重要的作用，但是人体 tRNA合成酶拥有可提供信号传递等更多重要功能的片断形式。aTyr Pharma发现了带抗炎症功能的专有片断。Beutler博士是炎症研究领域非常杰出的人士，我们希望能够利用他的经验，尽快将这些蛋白质开发成治疗炎症性疾病的生物疗法。”
aTyr Pharma 联合创始人、TSRI 的 Paul Schimmel 教授补充说：“我非常钦佩Beutler博士在人体炎症领域所取得的科学进展以及他将自己的发现转化成疗法的能力，这些疗法对人类健康的改善产生了巨大影响。他能够加盟我们的科学顾问委员会，我们感到非常荣幸，因为我们相信他将对aTyrPharma 的新型治疗用蛋白质的了解与发展做出巨大贡献。”
Beutler 博士拥有加州大学圣地亚哥分校 (University of California SanDiego)的学士学位、加州大学芝加哥分校的医学博士学位。进入洛克菲勒大学 (RockefellerUniversity)开始其研究职业生涯、在 UTSMC 担任 Howard Hughes 的调查员以及在 TSRI任职前，Beutler 博士在University of Texas SouthwesternMedicalCenter（德州大学西南医疗中心，简称”UTSMC”）度过了其住院医生实习期。他合著了300多篇论文，这些论文被其他科学家引用了38,000多次。Beutler博士在遗传学以及炎症和先天性免疫的分子基础方面的革命性研究最为著名，他发现了TNF 在炎症应答方面所发挥的关键作用。
aTyr Pharma 简介
aTyr Pharma, Inc 是致力于发现全新类别生物制剂的生物制药公司。aTyr Pharma面向新生物疗法的发现引擎由tRNA 合成酶系列中新型蛋白质组成，这些蛋白质拥有与tRNA合成酶普遍相关的蛋白质合成功能截然不同的细胞信号传递功能。这些蛋白质被开发成治疗癌症、神经退行性疾病、炎症、心血管疾病和新陈代谢功能失调的新颖疗法。
http://www.atyrpharma.com
全球“最贵”科学奖邵逸夫奖在港揭晓编辑本段回目录
作为世界上奖金最高的科学奖项，2011年度邵逸夫奖于日前在中国香港揭晓。
意大利罗马空间天体物理学与宇宙物理学研究所的Enrico Costa与亚拉巴马州亨茨维尔市美国宇航局（NASA）马歇尔空间飞行中心的Gerald Fishman获得了天文学奖。他们过去20年的工作发现了伽马射线爆的起源（如上图）。
法国斯特拉斯堡大学的Jules Hoffmann、美国耶鲁大学的Ruslan Medzhitov与加利福尼亚州圣地亚哥市斯科利普斯研究所的Bruce Beutler获得了生命科学与医学奖。三人开创性的研究确定了先天性免疫系统的机制。
苏黎世瑞士联邦理工学院（ETH）的Demetrios Christodoulou与美国纽约市哥伦比亚大学的Richard Hamilton获得了数学奖，以表彰他们在洛伦兹几何与黎曼几何中的非线性偏微分方程方面的高度创新工作，及对广义相对论和拓扑学的应用。
邵逸夫奖于2002年设立。每个奖项将获得100万美元的奖金。颁奖典礼将于9月在香港举行。
获得奖项一览表编辑本段回目录
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2011, shared with Jules A. Hoffmann and Ralph M. Steinman)
Shaw Prize (2011, shared with Jules A. Hoffmann and Ruslan M. Medzhitov)
Will Rogers Institute Annual Prize for Research (2009)
Albany Medical Center Prize (2009, shared with Charles A. Dinarello and Ralph M. Steinman)
Balzan Prize for Innate Immunity (2007, shared with Jules A. Hoffmann).
Doctor of Medicine Honoris causa from the Technical University of Munich Germany, (2007).
William B. Coley Award of the Cancer Research Institute, USA (2006, shared with Shizuo Akira).
Gran Prix Charles-Leopold Mayer of the Académie des Sciences, France (2006).
Robert Koch Prize of the Robert Koch Foundation, Germany (2004, shared with Jules A. Hoffmann and Shizuo Akira).
Institute for Scientific Information has listed Beutler as an ISI highly cited researcher since the year 2001, marking him as an influential figure in the field of immunology. He has also been listed by Thomson-Reuters as a Citation Laureate.
参考文献编辑本段回目录
http://finance.qq.com/a/20090807/004766.htm
