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An American immunologist who tracked down the long-sought receptor for endotoxin, a bacterial molecule that can trigger the immune system into overdrive, by identifying the exact mutations that made certain mouse strains oblivious to it. Locating that receptor, Toll-like receptor 4, helped establish how the innate immune system first senses infection, work that opened the door to identifying an entire family of related receptors. Beutler shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Jules Hoffmann and Ralph Steinman.