James P. Allison of US and Tasuku Honjo of Japan shared the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for “therapy for the discovery of negative immunomodulation for cancer treatment”.
As many people have said, the pioneering contributions of Prof. Allison and Prof. Honjo and other researchers in immunotherapy have completely changed the way humans fight cancer.
James P. Allison
James P. Allison, American immunologist, is currently Professor and Director of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Director of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Cancer Research Institute (CRI). His research focuses on the development and activity mechanisms of T cells and the development of new strategies for tumor immunotherapy. Ellison found on the molecular surface of immune cells that a protein called cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) acts as a “molecular brake” that stops the immune response. Inhibition of CTLA-4 molecules allows T cells to proliferate in a large amount and attack tumor cells. Based on this mechanism, ipilimumab, the first cancer immunological drug, was developed for the treatment of melanoma. His findings provide a new direction for the treatment of the deadliest cancers. He won the Life Science Breakthrough Prize, Biopharmaceutical Science, the Horwitz Prize, the Geirnar International Award, the Harvey Award in 2014 and the Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award in 2015.
Honjo Tasuku
Honjo Tasuku is a Japanese doctor, a medical scientist, the foreign academician of the National Academy of Sciences, and the member of the Japanese Academy of Sciences. He is currently a visiting professor at Kyoto University. Honjo discovered the T cell inhibitory receptor PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) in 1992 and pioneered cancer immunotherapy in 2013, and his achievements ranked first in top ten scientific breakthroughs in Science. He is the winner of the Robert Kochol Prize, the highest medical award in Germany. The world-famous research on PD-1 and activation-induced cytidine deaminase has won important awards such as the first Biopharmaceutical Science, the Kyoto Award and the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize.
As one of the most prestigious medical research awards, the award of a physiology or medicine means that the research results are recognized by the academic community. In addition, the Nobel Prize winner will receive a gold medal, a certificate and a bonus at the December awards ceremony. In 2017, the Nobel Prize for a single prize was 9 million Swedish kronor.
Review: The winners and their major achievements of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine during the past 5 years
- In 2017, Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rothsbach and Michael W. Young, three American scientists, won awards for their achievements in studying the molecular mechanisms of the operation of the circadian clock.
- In 2016, Yoshinori Ohsumi, the Japanese scientist, won the award for his achievements in the study of cellular autophagy mechanism.
- In 2015, Tu Youyou, Chinese female pharmacist, William Campbell of Irish and Satoshi Omura of Japan, won the award for their achievements in the treatment of parasitic diseases.
- In 2014, John O’Keefe, a scientist with American and British nationality, and Mary-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser, two Norwegian scientists, won an award for their discovery of cells in the brain localization system.
- In 2013, James E. Rothman and Randy Schekman of US and Thomas C. Südhof of German won the award for their discovery of cellular vesicle trafficking regulation.