Stockholms: James P. Allison of America and Tasuku Honjo of Japan, two immunologists won the 2018 Nobel Prize for for their discovery of ‘immune checkpoint therapy,’ a cancer treatment. The two were awarded the Prize “for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation' in the field Medicine for discoveries leading to new approaches in harnessing the immune system to fight cancer.

Medicine is the first of the Nobel Prizes awarded each year. The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were created in accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901. The literature prize will not be handed out this year after the awarding body was hit by a sexual misconduct scandal. Both laureates studied proteins that prevent the body and its main immune cells, known as T-cells, from attacking tumour cells effectively.

Allison, professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, studied a protein that functions as a brake on the immune system and realised the potential for unleashing immune cells to attack tumours if the brake could be released. Honjo, professor at Kyoto University since 1984, separately discovered a second protein on immune cells and revealed that it too operated as a brake, but with a different mechanism.

“Cancer kills millions of people every year and is one of humanity’s greatest health challenges. By stimulating the inherent ability of our immune system to attack tumor cells this year’s Nobel Laureates have established an entirely new principle for cancer therapy,” read a statement from the Academy.