Two immunologists, James Allison of the US and Tasuku Honjo of Japan, won this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine for research into how the body’s natural defenses can fight cancer, the jury said yesterday.
Unlike more traditional forms of cancer treatment that directly target cancer cells, Allison and Honjo figured out how to help the patient’s own immune system tackle the cancer more quickly.
The award-winning discovery led to treatments targeting proteins made by some immune system cells that act as a “brake” on the body’s natural defenses, killing cancer cells.
The Nobel Assembly said after announcing the prize in Stockholm that the therapy “has now revolutionized cancer treatment and has fundamentally changed the way we view how cancer can be managed.”
In 1995, Allison was one of two scientists to identify the CTLA-4 molecule as an inhibitory receptor on T-cells.
T-cells are a type of white blood cell that play a central role in the body’s natural immunity to disease.
Allison “realized the potential of releasing the brake and thereby unleashing our immune cells to attack tumours,” the jury said.
At about the same time, Honjo discovered a protein on immune cells, the ligand PD-1, and eventually realized that it also worked as a brake, but acted in a different way.
On the Web site of his University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Allison, 70, said he was “honored and humbled to receive this prestigious recognition.”
“I never dreamed my research would take the direction it has,” he said.
“It’s a great, emotional privilege to meet cancer patients who’ve been successfully treated with immune checkpoint blockade. They are living proof of the power of basic science, of following our urge to learn and to understand how things work,” he said.
Meanwhile, Honjo, 76, vowed to push ahead with his work.
“I want to continue my research ... so that this immune therapy will save more cancer patients than ever,” he told reporters at the University of Kyoto where he is based.
The Nobel jury said that “for more than 100 years, scientists attempted to engage the immune system in the fight against cancer.”
“Until the seminal discoveries by the two laureates, progress into clinical development was modest,” the jury said.
Allison and Honjo have previously shared the 2014 Tang Prize, touted as Asia’s version of the Nobels, for their research.
Yesterday’s announcement was partially eclipsed by a Stockholm court’s decision to sentence a Frenchman at the heart of a Nobel scandal to two years in prison for rape.
An influential figure in Stockholm’s cultural scene, 72-year-old Jean-Claude Arnault was found guilty of rape in 2011.
Arnault is married to a member of the Swedish Academy that selects the Nobel Prize in Literature winner. The scandal has led to the postponement of this year’s literature prize to next year.
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