Kupal123 · CC BY-SA 3.0

Ralph M. Steinman discovered dendritic cells in 1973 while working as a postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University, identifying the cell type that alerts the immune system's T cells to threats and switches on the body's adaptive immune response. The finding reshaped immunology's understanding of how the body recognizes what to fight, and he was awarded a share of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for it, work he pursued at Rockefeller for his entire career.