Tasuku Honjo of Japan and James Allison of the US and won the 2018 Nobel Medicine Prize (AFP Photo/Sam YEH) |
Two immunologists, James Allison of the US and Tasuku Honjo of Japan, won the 2018 Nobel Medicine Prize for research into how the body's natural defences can fight cancer, the jury said on Monday.
Unlike more
traditional forms of cancer treatment that directly target cancer cells --
often with severe side-effects -- Allison and Honjo figured out how to help the
patient's own immune system tackle the cancer more quickly.
The
pioneering discoveries led to treatments targeting proteins made by some immune
system cells that act as a "brake" on the body's natural defences
killing cancer cells.
The Nobel
Assembly in Stockholm said the therapy "has now revolutionised 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, a type of white blood cell that play a central
role in the body's natural immunity to disease.
The
70-year-old, whose mother died of cancer when he was 10, "realised the
potential of releasing the brake and thereby unleashing our immune cells to
attack tumours," the Nobel jury said.
Around the
same time, Honjo discovered a protein on immune cells, the ligand PD-1, and
eventually realised that it also worked as a brake but in a different way.
'Honoured
and humbled'
On the
website of his University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Allison said he
was "honoured 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."
Honjo, 76,
meanwhile 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.
Scientists
have attempted to engage the immune system in the fight against cancer for more
than 100 years, but until the seminal discoveries by the two laureates,
progress into clinical development was modest.
Antibodies
against PD-1 have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration as an
investigational new drug and developed for the treatment of cancer.
The Nobel
jury said the award-winning research "has fundamentally changed the
way we
view how cancer can be managed" (AFP Photo/Jonathan NACKSTRAND)
|
Former US
President Jimmy Carter, 94, a 2002 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, survived
melanoma, a severe stage of skin cancer which spread to his brain, after
undergoing a form of immunotherapy, among others.
Research by
Allison's team has meanwhile led to the development of a monoclonal antibody
drug, which was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2011
for the treatment of melanoma. It is known commercially as Yervoy.
"I'd
like to just give a shout out to all the patients out there to let them know we
are making progress now," Allison told a news conference in New York.
Allison and
Honjo have previously shared the 2014 Tang Prize, touted as Asia's version of
the Nobels, for their research.
New
therapies 'desperately needed'
Other
cancer treatments have previously been awarded Nobel prizes, including methods
for hormone treatment for prostate cancer in 1966, chemotherapy in 1988 and
bone marrow transplantation for leukaemia in 1990.
The Nobel
Assembly said advanced cancer -- the second biggest killer worldwide -- remains
immensely difficult to treat and novel therapeutic strategies are desperately
needed.
The duo
will share the Nobel prize sum of nine million Swedish kronor (about $1.01
million or 870,000 euros).
Monday's
announcement was partially eclipsed by a Stockholm court's decision to sentence
Frenchman Jean-Claude Arnault, a 72-year-old at the heart of a Nobel scandal,
to two years in prison for rape that emerged during the #MeToo campaign.
The
aftermath has led to a bitter internal dispute that has prevented the Academy
from functioning properly, and as a result it postponed this year's Literature
Prize until 2019 -- the first time the prize has been delayed since 1949.
The winners
of this year's physics prize will be announced on Tuesday, followed by the
chemistry prize on Wednesday. The peace prize will be announced on Friday, and
the economics prize will wrap up the Nobel season on Monday, October 8.
Presentation of the concept of immunotherapy, a new way to treat cancer pic.twitter.com/EB6LfPYiLb— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 2, 2018
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