James P. Allison of the United States and Tasuku Honjo of Japan were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for their work in the fight against cancer.

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet recognized the pair "for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation." </s> James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo are jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology

STOCKHOLM (AP) — James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo are jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology. </s> James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo have won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of cancer therapy that works by harnessing the body's own immune system.

Allison, 70, is currently chair of the department of immunology at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Honjo, 76, is a distinguished professor at the Kyoto University Institute for Advanced Study and a professor in the department of immunology and genomic medicine at Kyoto University in Japan.

Their work centers harnessing the immune system in such a way as to arrest the development of cancer. The discoveries led to the decade's major advance in cancer therapy, drugs called checkpoint inhibitors. Several such drugs have been approved for use in the US.

According to his website, Honjo discovered a key protein — Programmed Cell Death Protein 1 — in controlling whether cells live or die, a central process in determining whether cells become cancerous and grow into tumors or behave normally. The Nobel committee cited Allison's study of a protein that functions as a brake on the immune system, CTLA-4. By releasing this brake, the body's own immune system can be stimulated to attack tumors.

The prize is currently worth $1,012,297.05 and will be split between the winners. </s> The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded on Monday to James P. Allison of the United States and Tasuku Honjo of Japan for their work on unleashing the body’s immune system to attack cancer, a breakthrough that has led to an entirely new class of drugs and brought lasting remissions to many patients who had run out of options.

Their success, which came after many researchers had given up on the idea, “brought immunotherapy out from decades of skepticism,” said Dr. Jedd Wolchok, a cancer specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. It has, he said, “led to human applications that have affected an untold number of people’s health.”

Before Dr. Allison’s and Dr. Honjo’s discoveries, cancer treatment consisted of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and hormonal treatments. A statement from the Nobel committee hailed their accomplishments as establishing “an entirely new principle for cancer therapy.”

The drugs based on their work belong to a class called checkpoint inhibitors, with tongue-twisting names that have nonetheless become familiar to many patients. The first ones approved were ipilimumab (brand name Yervoy), nivolumab (Opdivo) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda). Others have since come to market. </s> Two immunologists, James Allison of the US and Tasuku Honjo of Japan, won the 2018 Nobel Medicine Prize for research that has revolutionised the treatment of cancer, the jury said on Monday.

The pair were honoured "for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation," the Nobel Assembly said.

Immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy targets proteins made by some immune system cells, as well as some cancer cells.

The proteins can stop the body's natural defences from killing cancer cells. The therapy is designed to remove this protein "brake" and allow the immune system to more quickly get to work fighting the cancer.

Allison, a professor at the University of Texas, and Honjo, a professor at Kyoto University, in 2014 won the Tang Prize, touted as Asia's version of the Nobels, for their research.

The duo will share the Nobel prize sum of nine million Swedish kronor (about USD 1.01 million).

They will receive their prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf at a formal ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of Alfred Nobel who created the prizes in his last will and testament.

In 2017, US geneticists Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young were awarded the medicine prize for their research on the role of genes in setting the "circadian clock" which regulates sleep and eating patterns, hormones and body temperature.

The winners of 2018 physics prize will be announced on Tuesday, followed by the chemistry prize on Wednesday. The peace prize will be announced on Friday, and the economics prize will wrap up the Nobel season on Monday, 8 October.

For the first time since 1949, the Swedish Academy has postponed the announcement of the 2018 Nobel Literature Prize until next year, amid a #MeToo scandal and bitter internal dispute that has prevented it from functioning properly. </s> Scientists Who Sparked Revolution In Cancer Treatment Share Nobel Prize In Medicine

James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo have won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries which led to the development of cancer therapies that work by harnessing the body's own immune system.

Allison, 70, is currently chair of the department of immunology at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Honjo, 76, is a distinguished professor at the Kyoto University Institute for Advanced Study and a professor in the department of immunology and genomic medicine at Kyoto University in Japan.

Their work centers on harnessing the immune system to arrest the development of cancer. The discoveries led to one of the decade's major advance in cancer therapy — drugs called checkpoint inhibitors. Several such drugs have been approved for use in the U.S.

According to his website, Honjo discovered a key protein – Programmed Cell Death Protein 1 — in controlling whether cells live or die, a central process in determining whether cells become cancerous and grow into tumors or behave normally.

The Nobel committee cited Allison's study of a protein called CTLA-4 that functions as a brake on the immune system. By releasing this brake, the body's own immune system can be stimulated to attack tumors.

Speaking to NPR in 2016, Allison said in his experiments on mice with cancer, he tinkered with one key molecule on the outside of T cells in the rodent's immune system.

"I've been doing this sort of stuff for years, and I'd never seen anything like that," Allison said. "And I thought, 'If we could do that in people, this is going to be amazing.'"

The prize is currently worth $1,012,297.05 and will be split between the winners. </s> This week the Swedish Academy is honoring experts who are transforming their fields with the Nobel Prize.Here's what you need to know about the winners so far.Half of the prize went to Arthur Ashkin for his work on "optical tweezers."Ashkin, 96, is the oldest laureate ever. A graduate of Columbia and Cornell, he has spent his career researching microwaves, nonlinear optics and laser trapping at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey.He developed "optical tweezers" that can grab tiny particles such as viruses without damaging them. An "an old dream of science fiction" had been to use the radiation pressure of light to move objects, according to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Sweden.The other half of the physics award went jointly to Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou for their work on laser pulses.Donna Strickland is the first woman in 55 years to have won a physics prize, according to an official with the American Institute of Physics . She works at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Mourou works for Ecole Polytechnique just outside of Paris as well as the University of Michigan.In a revolutionary 1985 article, the pair shared their findings about short and intense laser pulses they developed. The most familiar application of this is on laser eye surgery, but there is a variety of industrial and medical applications.The award went to Jim Allison and Tasuku Honjo for their work in cancer therapy.Allison is the chair of Immunology and executive director of the immunotherapy platform at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Honjo works at Kyoto University in Japan.The pair "established an entirely new principle for cancer therapy" by showing how human immune systems could have the ability to attack cancer cells. The men each found a different way to "put the brakes" on the immune system to allow it to fight cancer, according to the Nobel Foundation's press release . The work of both men led to new cancer treatments.The Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be awarded on Wednesday.The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded on Friday.The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences will be awarded on Monday, Oct. 8.The literature award will not be given out this year, the Academy announced in May , due to sexual assault allegations against Jean-Claude Arnault.Arnault is a major cultural figure in Sweden who is married to a member of the Swedish Academy and who ran a cultural group closely tied to the academy. He is on trial for two counts of rape, charges which he denies. His wife quit the academy."The Swedish Academy must be able to report what concrete measures are being taken and should get outside help in order to solve their problems. Among other things, they need to reassess compliance with their confidentiality and conflict-of-interest rules," said Lars Heikensten , the director of the Nobel Prize Foundation.Heikensten said that his hope is that the Swedish Academy will be able to choose winners for the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2018 and 2019 next year. </s> Japan's Yoshinori Ohsumi has won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy. </s> Oct. 1 (UPI) -- The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is set to announce the winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday morning.

The event is scheduled to take place around 11:45 a.m. CEST at the academy in Stockholm.

The Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded since 1901 and can include up to three different laureates.

Last year's winners were three Americans -- Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish, and Kip S. Thorne -- honored for their contributions to the study of gravitational waves.

On Monday, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet gave this year's medicine award to cancer researchers James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo for their discoveries in cancer therapy.