Nobel Prize unknowingly awarded to dead Biologist

This year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Ralph Steinman for his work in immunology however when the Nobel committee tried to contact him they learnt he had died fully three days earlier. The rules of the prize dictate it cannot be awarded posthumously however after consideration the committee decided uphold the award to Steinman as the decision had been made in “good faith, based on the assumption he was alive”. Steinman had been battling pancreatic cancer, a disease with a usual life expectancy of around six months, for four years using a pioneering treatment based on his own research.