Bruce A. Beutler

Bruce Alan Beutler is the Raymond and Ellen Willie Distinguished Chair in Cancer Research; Regental Professor; and Director of the Center for Genetics of Host Defense at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Beutler, along with his colleagues Dr. Jules Hoffmann and Dr. Ralph Steinman, received the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovery of the role of Toll-like receptors in sensing bacterial invaders and mediating the body's immediate inflammatory response. Using the power of mouse genetics, Beutler traced the inherited defect in a strain of mice that fail to show an inflammatory response when injected with a bacterial toxin and showed that resistance is conferred by a mutation in the gene encoding Toll-like receptor 4. The Toll family of proteins had been discovered by Hoffman in fruit flies, but their function in higher animals was unknown. This discovery opened a new and promising avenue into the understanding of inflammatory diseases. Beutler’s work provided molecular underpinning to the field of innate immunity, the system by which mammals resist infection while waiting for the production of antibodies. The innate immune response precedes the adaptive antibody response that is triggered by dendritic cells, discovered by Steinman. Beutler’s research in this area is ongoing, and the Beutler lab’s current research systematically employs a forward genetic approach to identify genes that are essential for the mammalian innate immune response, and to determine their functions relative to one another. Beutler has authored or co-authored more than 300 papers in journals including the Annals of Medicine, Nature, and Science. His articles have been cited more than 46,000 times. His articles. Before he received the Nobel Prize, his work was recognized by the Shaw Prize, the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, election to the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine, the Frederik B. Bang Award, the Balzan Prize, the Gran Prix Charles-Leopold Mayer, the William B. Coley Award, the Robert Koch Prize, and other honors.