This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to immunologists James Allison of MD Anderson Cancer Center and Tasuku Honjo of Kyoto University this morning (October 1). The two independently propelled the field of immunotherapy, laying the foundations for the development of a number of drugs now approved to treat cancer.
Michael Curran, an immunologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center who worked in Allison’s lab for a decade, says the honor was expected—and well deserved. “It was that combination of brilliant, tenacious research and being personally unwavering in his confidence in his findings that allowed this field to advance,” Curran tells The Scientist.
Kanazawa University’s Masamichi Muramatsu, who worked in Honjo’s lab for 12 years, was similarly pleased to hear the news. “He is a giant in Japanese immunology,” Muramatsu says. “Many people expected this Nobel Prize.”
Immunotherapy had a slow start. While the concept of tweaking the ...
