This year’s Noble prize for medicine has been awarded to Tasuku Honjo and James Allison jointly for their work in the field of cancer immunotherapy. This field basically equips the human immune system to fight against cancer.
Highlights:
Two scientists Tasuku Honjo and James Allison have bagged the Nobel prize for medicine 2018 for their extraordinary work in the field of cancer immunotherapy. This field of study mainly works towards equipping the immune system to fight against cancer.
Both of the scientists, Tasuku Honjo from the University of Kyoto and James Allison from Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston were awarded the Nobel prize jointly for their work. - 2018 Nobel prize for medicine has been awarded to Tasuku Honjo and James Allison for their contribution in the field of cancer immunotherapy.
- This field involves Bioengineering the immune system in ways it can treat cancer.
- Why was the award given: They had developed a way to remove the brakes the cancer places on the immune cells that try to destroy it.
- The work of both of these scientists have led to the development of a new class of therapies - Checkpoint inhibitor therapies
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Disease-fighting T cells, elicited from vaccines, do not require glucose for their rapid reproduction, a finding with major implications for the development of immunotherapies for cancer patients.
Disease-fighting T cells, elicited from vaccines, do not require glucose for their rapid reproduction, a finding with major implications for the development of immunotherapies for cancer patients.
‘Fellow scientists consider their work to be incredibly transformative, they even believe that their Checkpoint inhibitor therapies based on their breakthroughs can save more lives.’
Fellow scientists consider their work to be incredibly transformative, they even believe that their Checkpoint inhibitor therapies based on breakthroughs can save more lives. Though the treatment is very specific, they believe this mode of treatment has given few cancer patients some hope. Here is a more detailed explanation of their work :
The reason why both of these scientists were awarded the noble prize jointly because they both had discovered two different proteins that were stopping the immune system from doing its function (i.e., killing the cancer cells), both of their work were along the same lines.
Cancer Immunotherapy Made of Immune Cells Appears Safe and Potent
Immunotherapy where human t-cells are engineered with chimeric antigen receptors enhance anti-tumor activity. Natural killer (NK)-CAR-iPSC-NK cells now provide standardized, targeted “off-the-shelf” lymphocytes for anti-cancer immunotherapy.
Immunotherapy where human t-cells are engineered with chimeric antigen receptors enhance anti-tumor activity. Natural killer (NK)-CAR-iPSC-NK cells now provide standardized, targeted “off-the-shelf” lymphocytes for anti-cancer immunotherapy.
In parallel to Dr. James Allison’s work, Tasuku Honjo also discovered a protein on immune cells that acted as a stopper for immune system, after finding the mechanism by which the cancer cells were clever enough to do this, he decided to develop Therapies based on his discovery, these therapies proved to be strikingly effective against cancer.
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Multiple immune cell types must be present in tumors for 'checkpoint inhibitor' therapies to be effective.
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