瑞典卡罗琳医学院2011年10月3日在斯德哥尔摩宣布，将本年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖授予美国科学家布鲁斯·博伊特勒、生于卢森堡的法国籍科学家朱尔斯·霍夫曼以及加拿大科学家拉尔夫·斯坦曼，以表彰他们在免疫学领域取得的研究成果。诺贝尔奖评选委员会在声明中说，人类及其他动物依靠免疫系统抵抗细菌等微生物的侵害，博伊特勒和霍夫曼发现了关键受体蛋白质，它们能够识别微生物对动物机体的攻击并激活免疫系统，这是免疫反应的第一步。斯坦曼则发现了能够激活并调节适应性免疫的树突细胞，这种细胞促使免疫反应进入下一阶段并将微生物清除出机体。这3位获奖者的研究成果揭示免疫反应的激活机制，使人们对免疫系统的理解发生“革命性变化”，进而为免疫系统疾病研究提供了新的认识，并为传染病、癌症等疾病的防治开辟了新的道路。诺贝尔生理学或医学奖奖金共1000万瑞典克朗(约合146万美元)，博伊特勒和霍夫曼将分享其中的一半奖金，斯坦曼则独享另外一半。

但是2011年12月19日《新科学家》网站发表文章，对于法国籍科学家朱尔斯·霍夫曼的获奖贡献提出质疑。指控者是Bruno Lemaitre，他虽然并不是1996年发表在CELL杂志上的论文第一作者，但是，在1992-1998年之间，Bruno Lemaitre是法国斯特拉斯堡国家科学研究中心(CNRS)霍夫曼实验室的助理研究员。Bruno Lemaitre声称在20世纪90年代的大部分时间里,他是唯一从事Toll基因研究的研究人员,霍夫曼对此并不感兴趣。详细报道可以参看原文：

A scientist is accusing French immunologist Jules Hoffmann, who was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine along with Bruce Beutler for the discovery in Drosophila that the Toll gene regulates the immune response against bacteria and fungi, of not doing the research that led to the prize. The accusation comes from none other than the first author of the 1996 Cell paper where the finding was reported, Bruno Lemaitre.

Lemaitre, who worked as a research associate in Hoffmann’s lab at the at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Strasbourg, France, from 1992 to 1998, claims that for most of the 1990s, he was the only researcher working on Toll and that Hoffmann did not express interest and was for the most part not aware of his research.

“Jules never provided any ideas for my project, being very far from the realities of experimental bench work…[and] was not very supportive of the genetics approach I had undertaken,” Lemaitre wrote in a story outlining his take on the work the led to the Nobel. “Subsequently, he has never been able to fully recognize my contribution, yet somehow it is he who is now collecting the honours for my work.” He published the story in a website he created to voice his frustrations on the subject.

Although Hoffmann refuses to address Lemaitre’s accusations on account that it “would not be elegant,” he told ScienceInsider last week that he “cannot feel any guilt at all,” and that Lemaitre and others involved in the work received their due credit in the Nobel lecture he gave recently in Stockholm.