Ralph Steinman served on the Nikolas Symposium Steering Committee for the last eight years of his life until 2011. A Nobel Prize laureate, he identified the cell type that is almost singularly responsible for commanding the efforts of all other immune cells: the dendritic cell.
He was a professor at Rockefeller University and appointed director of the Christopher H. Browne Center for Immunology and Immune Diseases. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, he was an editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, an advisory editor at the Journal of Clinical Immunology, the Journal of Immunologic Methods and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Steinman’s dynamic personality and boundless energy allowed him to build collaborations with immunologists and scientists all over the world. Sadly, he passed away just three days before the Nobel Prize was announced. The Nobel Committee made an unprecedented decision that his award would stand.
