STOCKHOLM: Two immunologists, James P Allison and Tasuku Honjo, have jointly won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work on new techniques to combat cancer.
The researchers had “established an entirely new principle” for fighting cancer by helping stimulate the body’s own defences, said the Karolinska Institute, which awards the medicine prize, the first in a week of Nobel awards.
US scientist Allison, 70, studied a protein that “functions as a brake on the immune system.” His experiments with blocking the protein, named CTLA-4, achieved positive results as early as 1994.
Japanese researcher Honjo, 76, discovered another protein on immune cells, called PD-1, that performed a similar braking function.
It led to treatments that were “strikingly effective” in the fight against cancer, the prize-givers said.
After receiving the news, the professor posted a photo of himself and over a dozen members of his research team at Kyoto University smiling and giving the thumbs-up.
“When someone said to me, ‘I am well now, recovering from a serious illness thanks to you,’ I realise that my research was meaningful and feel happy more than anything... I’m a very fortunate man,” Honjo told a news conference at the university.
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