This morning, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to two scientists who, separately discovered proteins that “brake” the immune system — work that paved the way for what the committee calls “an entirely new principle for cancer therapy.” The winners are James P. Allison of the United States and Tasuku Honjo of Japan.
Working in the 1990s, both scientists studied proteins that regulate the immune system and keep it in check. For Allison, this protein was CTLA-4 protein, while Honjo studied a protein called PD-1. Both CTLA-4 and PD-1 regulate the immune system and keep it from being too aggressive. Therefore, it’s possible…
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