Nobel medicine winners prove elusive, award-giver says

STOCKHOLM - The three scientists who won the 2011 Nobel prize for medicine were still unaware they had been given the award on Monday more than an hour after it was publicly announced, the head of the prize giving panel said. Sweden's Karolinska Institute said in a statement that the prize went to U.S. scientist Bruce Beutler, Luxembourg-born Jules Hoffmann, based in France, and Canadian-born Ralph Steinman, based in the United States. "I couldn't get hold of them. I am going to try and call them now," Goran Hansson, Secretary-General of the Nobel Committee, told Reuters. When a Nobel prize is given, the Nobel committee at the award giving institution either calls the recipients before the official announcement or gets hold of them shortly afterwards. - Reuters