New York: After an amusing game of phone tag, the Nobel Prize committee on Tuesday finally spoke to laureate Fred Ramsdell, who was hiking "off the grid" when the news broke.

The researcher told The New York Times he was wrapping up a three-week nature trek on Monday with his phone in airplane mode when the Nobel organizers, media outlets and friends were fruitlessly trying to reach him.

He finally found out that he was a Nobel Prize winner in medicine from his wife. She said her phone was flooded with messages when she regained cell service as the pair made a stop in Montana, the end of the vacation that included hiking and camping across mountains there as well as Idaho and Wyoming.

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The paper said Ramsdell had tried returning the call of Thomas Perlmann, the Nobel Assembly secretary-general, but it was too late in Sweden. They finally connected Tuesday morning.

On Monday, Sonoma Biotherapeutics, Ramsdell's lab, had told AFP the scientist was "living his best life" on an "off the grid" hiking journey.

Ramsdell's friend and colleague Jeffrey Bluestone, who co-founded the lab, told AFP he couldn't reach him either.

Ramsdell shares the prize with Mary Brunkow of Seattle, Washington and Shimon Sakaguchi of Osaka University in Japan for their discoveries related to the functioning of the immune system.

The 64-year-old told the Times he tries to spend as much time in the mountains as he can.

The laureate said he was "grateful and humbled" by the award, and "looking forward to sharing this with my colleagues."

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