Nobel prizewinner dies before announcement

A scientist who won the Nobel Prize for medicine on Monday for work on fighting cancer died of the disease himself just three days before he could be told of his award and after using his own discoveries to extend his life.      

Canadian-born Ralph Steinman, 68, had been treating himself with a groundbreaking therapy based on his own research into the body's immune system but died on Friday after a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer. His colleagues at Rockefeller University in New York called it a "bittersweet" honor.      

The Nobel Committee at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, which does not make posthumous awards, said it was aware of Steinman's death; but it appeared that it had not known before making its announcement. It is likely that Steinman died without being aware he had won science's ultimate accolade, along with American Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffmann of France.    

The 2011 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, was awarded on Monday to Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffmann jointly "for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity" and the other half to Ralph Steinman "for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity".    

-Reuters