Two professors and scientist who have been working on cancer immunotherapy, won Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine, 2018. James P. Allison from America and Tasuku Honjo from Japan has jointly been awarded by The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet, for their phenomenal success on cancer immunotherapy.
At a glance:
James P. Allison is an American immunologist, engages the position of professor and chair of Immunology and executive director of immunotherapy platform at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. He has also written a book on cancer immunotherapy named the same.
Tasuku Honjo from Kyoto University Japan, is an immunologist, best known for his identification of Programmed Cell death Protein. He is also known for his molecular identification of cytokines: IL-4 and IL-5, as well as the discovery of Activation-induced Cytidine Deaminase (ACD).
Our unique defense mechanism, improved
Our body is capable on killing the tumor cells with an uninterrupted action of our immune system. Allison and Honjo showed different methods to stop the protein that act as a brake in the T cells and inhibits our immune action. Named Immune Checkpoint Therapy, this new treatment has shown hope to enormous number of people suffering from this deadliest disease. This is used in NHS for Melanoma- a notorious form of skin cancer.
Though the treatment might not work for everybody, Honjo express his desire to keep the work ongoing for better understanding and outcome of the therapy. Allisons current work also seeks to improve Immune checkpoint blockade therapies currently used by clinicians and identify new targets to unleash the immune system to eradicate cancer.
Team Research Hub greets heartiest congratulation to both the scientist for their ground-breaking discovery and apical achievement.