Last: Nobel laureate Allison hears news from her son

STOCKHOLM (AP) – The latest Nobel Prize winners 2018 (all local times):

5:55 p.m.

James Allison learned that he had won the Nobel Prize for Medicine this morning during a phone call from his son.

Allison, MD Anderson Cancer Research Center at the University of Texas, won the Nobel Prize in 2018 with Tasuku Honjo, Kyoto University, Japan.

Allison, who was in a New York hotel for a scientific meeting, said at a press conference held Monday that the Nobel Committee had trouble joining him to announce the news. But his cell phone is on with a call from his son at 5:30 am, when the names of the winners are out.

Allison said soon "there were people beating at my door at 6 in the morning with champagne".

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16.30.

Nobel laureate James Allison of the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas said that more basic research was needed to help cancer patients.

Allison won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2018 on Monday with Tasuku Honjo from Kyoto University in Japan.

Allison's drug, known commercially as Yervoy, became the first to prolong the survival of patients with advanced melanoma. He says, "We need these drugs to work for more people."

Allison says scientists need to better understand "how these drugs work and how they could best be combined with other therapies to improve treatment and reduce unwanted side effects." We need more basic scientific research to reach".

Allison says it's a great emotional privilege to meet cancer patients who have been successfully treated with blocking immune control points. They are living proof of the power of basic science.

MD Anderson President Peter WT Pisters said Allison's research has led to life-saving treatments for people who otherwise would have little hope.

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3:50 p.m.

Tasuku Honjo, co-winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine, says she struggled in the early years of her research to find enough money to continue her groundbreaking work.

Honjo of the Kyoto Japanese University and James Allison of the University of Texas were rewarded for discovering how to boost the body's immune system so that it attacked at the same time. you die.

Honjo, 76, said he received a congratulatory phone call from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had asked him about funding difficulties in the past. Honjo told Abe that government funding has finally improved, allowing him to continue.

But Honjo later told the press that he had become so desperate that he had even considered joining an American pharmaceutical company or putting his personal savings into his work.

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2:50 p.m.

An American cancer doctor said the discoveries of James Allison of the University of Texas and Tasuku Honjo of Kyoto University in Japan, on how to boost the immune system's ability to attack tumors

Both researchers received the Nobel Prize for Medicine on Monday.

Dr. Jedd Wolchok, chief of the Department of Melanoma and Immunotherapies at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, told The Associated Press that "an incalculable number of lives … have been saved by the science they invented. "

He says the idea of ​​blocking the brakes of immune system cells has led to drugs for skin cancer, melanoma and cancers of the lung, head and neck, bladder, kidneys and liver.

Wolchok added that last week, such a drug was approved to treat another type of skin cancer called squamous cell cancer.

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2:40 p.m.

The Chief Medical Officer of the American Cancer Society said that he and his colleagues had toast Jim Allison on an evening Friday, a few days before the Nobel Prize announcement. because they were in agreement.

Dr. Otis W. Brawley, a close friend of Allison, says that the Nobel Committee usually waits ten or so years to make sure that a "scientific discovery" is really important.

And he says that Allison's work, ten years ago, "really opened up immunotherapy" as the fifth pillar of cancer treatments, after surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and precision therapy.

He says that "Jim Allison's discovery led to the first drug that caused complete remission in patients with metastatic disease – melanoma -".

And he says that the drug – ipilimumab, which is sold under the name of Yervoy – "is the first immunotherapy that often allows patients, in many cases, to live longer and of better quality".

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2:20 p.m.

Immunologist Tasuku Honjo of Japan, co-laureate of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2018, began her research after the death of a stomach cancer in a classmate less than two years after her discovery.

The 76-year-old, who spoke Monday at the Kyoto University in Japan after the Nobel Prize announcement in Stockholm, says his biggest reward is to hear cancer patients who have returned to health. after being treated.

Honjo, a passionate golf player, said that a member of a golf club had seen him suddenly thank him for the discovery that had treated his lung cancer.

Honjo says "He said to me," Thanks to you, I can play golf again. "… it was a happy moment, a comment like that makes me happier than any price."

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1:15 p.m.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe congratulated Japan's Nobel Prize winner Tasuku Honjo.

Abe called for a press conference at which Honjo spoke Monday after the immunologist won the 2018 Medicine Award.

Japan's chief said on a cell phone that Honjo's research had given hope to many patients. Abe added that as a Japanese, he feels proud. He encouraged the researcher from the Kyoto University, 76, to continue his good work.

Honjo and James Allison of the University of Texas jointly received the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

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1:05 p.m.

The approach to cancer treatment that has been honored with today's Nobel Prize has been used to treat former US President Jimmy Carter.

Carter was diagnosed in 2015 with melanoma, a cancer of the skin, that had spread to his brain. One of his treatments was a medicine that blocked the "brake" of the immune cell studied by the new Nobel laureate Tasuku Honjo.

Carter announced in 2016 that he no longer needed treatment.

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– This points out that the drug was part of Carter's treatments, not his only treatment.

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12:40

The Japanese Nobel laureate Tasuku Honjo says that what makes him happiest is when he hears patients who have recovered from a serious illness as a result of his research.

The immunologist said Monday at a press conference at the Kyoto University that he was honored and delighted with the award. He and James Allison of the University of Texas jointly received the Nobel Prize in Medicine 2018.

Honjo, 76, said he wanted to continue his research to save more cancer patients. He thanked colleagues, students and family who supported him in his research for so long.

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12:20

American James Allison says he is "honored and honored" to receive this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine, for his discovery of the release of a protein that slows down the human immune system, releasing immune cells to attack tumors.

Allison says that he has not undertaken to study cancer, but to better "understand the biology of T cells, those incredible cells that travel in our bodies and work to protect us."

This research resulted in a treatment known as "Immune Control Point Blocking" and Allison said that he was able to meet cancer survivors who are living proof of his power.

In her statement at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Allison is keen to "honor a succession of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and colleagues from MD Anderson, the University of California at Berkeley and Memorial. Sloan Kettering Cancer Center "research.

Allison receives the award jointly with Tasuku Honjo, 76, from Japan.

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12:05

The two winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology this year have made discoveries that "constitute a decisive step in our fight against cancer," according to a statement from the Nobel Prize-winning Karolinska Assembly. the price.

James Allison of the University of Texas and Tasuku Honjo of Kyoto University in Japan have conducted parallel work to boost the body's immune system's ability to attack tumors.

Allison has studied a protein that slows down the immune system and the release potential of this brake.

Honjo has discovered separately a new protein on immune cells and has finally found that it also acts as a brake.

"The therapies based on her discovery have proven to be extremely effective in the fight against cancer," said the assembly in a statement.

The release of the potential of immune cells to attack cancers joins other treatments, including surgery, radiation and drugs.

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11:45

This year's Nobel Prize for Medicine indicates that the two winners have developed cancer therapies.

The American James Allison has studied a protein that acts as a brake on the immune system.

He realized the potential to release the brake and release the immune cells to attack the tumors. He developed this concept in a new approach to treating patients.

Tasuku Honjo of Japan "discovered a protein on immune cells and revealed that it also functioned as a brake, but with a different mechanism of action. Therapies based on its discovery were found to be unhealthy. a striking efficiency in the fight against cancer ".

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11:30 am

The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded jointly to James Allison of the University of Texas and Tasuku Honjo of the Kyoto Japanese University for discovering a form of cancer treatment.

The price of 9 million kroner (1.01 million dollars) was announced Monday by the Nobel Prize of the Swedish Karolinska Institute.

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6 am

This year's Nobel Laureates will be unveiled starting Monday with the award for medicine or physiology.

The Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute – 50 professors from the Stockholm Institution – chooses the winner (s) of the award for research on the microscopic mechanisms of life and ways to fight invaders who have abbreviated it. A maximum of three winners are selected.

Last year, the award had been awarded to three Americans for their work identifying genes and proteins that act on the body's biological clock, affecting functions such as sleep, blood pressure and eating habits.

The physics prize will be announced Tuesday, followed by chemistry. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be named Friday. No literary prize is awarded this year.

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