Nobel Prize Jules Hoffmann receives the Ramón y Cajal award of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences

In his conference, Hoffmann went through the research experience that led him to be one of the awardees of the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 2011, and he encouraged young researchers to continue with their research lines, reminding them that “the understanding of innate immunity and its relation to adaptive immunity experienced a change of paradigm from the late 20th century to early 21t century”.

Like he said in his conference, “it is further estimated that innate immunity accounts directly for the major part of the successful antimicrobial defences of vertebrates”, Hoffman explained that, in comparison with the adaptive immune system, with millions of different receptors per individual, the innate immune system would get restricted to a bit more than a hundred per individual. These receptors join preferably molecular structures which are kept along the evolution and are present in the cell walls in fungus or bacteria.

Hoffmann believes the most important of this research was proving that “innate immunity activates, and controls too in some way, adaptive immunity”. He gave the same importance to the efforts to describe many molecular mechanisms involved in this process “provided the biomedical community with a great deal of tools to improve our defences against microbes”. After the speech, a Question Time followed, chaired by Adam Smith, scientific director of Nobel Media. Other participants in the activity, organized by the Nobel Prize Inspiration Initiative, were Professor Elias Campo, director of IDIBAPS, and Eduardo Recorder, president of AztraZeneca España and AstraZeneca Foundation, entities collaborating in the organization of the activity, which was also supported by the University of Barcelona, IDIBAPS and Hospital Clínic de Barcelona.

The Nobel Prize Inspiration Innitiative is a program aiming for the Nobel Prize awardees to share their ideas and personal experiences by bringing them to the universities and research centers worldwide. This is an opportunity so that students, the scientific community and especially young researchers establish a dialogue with the Nobel Prize awardee.

Jules Hoffmann (Luxembourg, 1941) focused his research carrer on the study of the innate immunity in insects. The study he started led the scientific community to re-evaluate the innate immunity in mammals and humans. Therefore, in 2011, together with Bruce Beutler and Raplg Steinman, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for his works in the field of immunology, which revolutionized the understanding of the immune system through the discovery of fundamental principles to activate it.

Ramón y Cajal Award

This award was approved of in 1983 with the aim to honor distinguished researchers who, like Santiago Ramón y Cajal, received the Nobel Prize. Since its creation, ten Nobel Prizes in Medicine and Physiology have been honoured.