A Nobel Prize winner for medicine only learned of his honour hours later while hiking.
Immunologist Fred Ramsdell’s San Francisco-based laboratory, Sonoma Biotherapeutics, initially announced that the Nobel winner was unreachable as he was out hiking.
In a statement earlier on Monday, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm announced that Ramsdell, along with his colleagues Shimon Sakaguchi from Japan and his U.S. colleague, Mary Brunkow, would receive the award in December.
At the time of the announcement, it was still the middle of the night on the U.S. West Coast.
The head of the laboratory managed to contact Ramsdell in the evening, the scientist’s spokeswoman said.
She told dpa that the researcher had cut his hike short and was now on his way home.
Brunkow also did not initially answer the call from Stockholm.
“My phone rang, and I saw a number from Sweden and thought, well that’s just spam of some sort, so I disabled the phone and went back to sleep,” she later explained.
She, her husband and their dog were eventually woken up by reporters.
The Nobel Committee said the findings of Ramsdell, Sakaguchi and Brunkow provided the basis for the development of potential future treatments for diseases such as cancer and autoimmune disorders.
The most prestigious award for medical researchers is worth 11 million Swedish kronor (€1.2 million).
