This year the Nobel Prize for Medicine will go to the American James P. Allison and the Japanese Tasuku Honjo. That is what the Karolinska Institute has communicated. The award comes to them because they have developed a new form of cancer treatment with a protein, with the help of the therapy, a negative immune regulation is slowed down.
Allison studied a protein CTLA-4 that acts as a brake on the immune system. He realized the potential to lift the brake and put our immune cells to work to fight tumours. Honjo also discovered a similar protein, but PD-1 works in a different way. Nevertheless, it is also very effective in the fight against the disease. The prize includes a sum of money of 870,000 euros. Since 1901, 214 people have won this Nobel Prize.
No Nobel Prize for Literature
The Nobel Prizes are now being awarded for a week. Next Monday, the Swedish central bank will be the last to award the Nobel Prize for Economics. On Friday it will be known who or what will receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
The exception is the Nobel Prize for Literature: this year this is due to a scandal in the jury. To compensate, two literature prices will be awarded in 2019.
