James Allison and Tasuku Honjo receive recognition “for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.”

Immunotherapy for cancer treatment is a burgeoning field of medicine. It hasn’t been around for that long, though. Two of the pioneers in the field are being recognized this year with the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology.

James Allison, currently a professor at MD Anderson and an affiliate of the Parker Institute, proposed that blocking the protein CTLA-4 would free up T cells that would attack cancer cells. Tasuku Honjo, a professor at Kyoto University, discovered the presence of PD-1—the main target of most approved checkpoint inhibitors—on the surfaces of T cells.

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet noted the “landmark discoveries in the fight against cancer” achieved by the two scientists. Up to the point of these discoveries, attempts to use the immune system to fight cancer had been generally unsuccessful. The knowledge uncovered by their work has led to the development of several different checkpoint inhibitors that are dramatically improving the lives of cancer patients and changed the way cancer is managed. 

With the recent approval of Libtayo (cemiplimab) from Regeneron and Sanofi by the US Food and Drug Administration, there are now six PD-1/L1 drugs on the market, including Yervoy (ipilimumab) from Bristol-Myers Squibb, which Allison helped to develop.

He and Honjo will share the 9 million Swedish kronor (~$1 million) prize.