Prevacus, a biopharmaceutical company based in Tallahassee, Fla., has appointed Nobel Laureate Bruce Beutler to its medical advisory board.

Professor Beutler is director of the Center for the Genetics of Host Defense at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He is recognized for his pioneering molecular and genetic studies of inflammation and innate immunity. He was the first to isolate mouse tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF), and to demonstrate its role in inflammation.

In 2011, Beutler shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity."