Nobel Prize goes to American, Japanese working separately on cancer immunotherapies
Two researchers who worked on game-changing therapies that unleash brakes against cancer have won 2018's Nobel Prize for medicine.
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| James P. Allison (left) and Tasuko Honjo |
The article indicates that "all previous types of cancer therapy were directed at the tumor cell, but Allison's and Honjo's approach was to remove brakes that keep the immune system in check."
The two, who were working separately, will equally share the prize of just over $1 million.
An earlier piece by Saey and Aimee Cunningham in ScienceNews noted that they had identified proteins that act as brakes on tumor-fighting T cells.
A Reuters story said the "scientists' work in the 1990s has since swiftly led to new and dramatically improved therapies for cancers such as melanoma and lung cancer, which had previously been extremely difficult to treat."
Treatments known as immune checkpoint blockade that resulted from their work, the piece added, "'have fundamentally changed the outcome' for some advanced cancer patients," the Nobel institute said."
The discoveries consequently spawned a multi-billion dollar market for new cancer medicines.
Reuters quoted a professor at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, Kevin Harrington, as contending the two scientists' work had revolutionized cancer treatment:
"We've gone from being in a situation where patients were effectively untreatable to having a range of therapy options that, when they work, work very well indeed," he said in a statement. "For some patients we see their tumors shrink or completely disappear and are effectively cured."
More information on research can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.
A Reuters story said the "scientists' work in the 1990s has since swiftly led to new and dramatically improved therapies for cancers such as melanoma and lung cancer, which had previously been extremely difficult to treat."
Treatments known as immune checkpoint blockade that resulted from their work, the piece added, "'have fundamentally changed the outcome' for some advanced cancer patients," the Nobel institute said."
The discoveries consequently spawned a multi-billion dollar market for new cancer medicines.
Reuters quoted a professor at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, Kevin Harrington, as contending the two scientists' work had revolutionized cancer treatment:
"We've gone from being in a situation where patients were effectively untreatable to having a range of therapy options that, when they work, work very well indeed," he said in a statement. "For some patients we see their tumors shrink or completely disappear and are effectively cured."
More information on research can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.
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