HOUSTON, July 5 — The figure that matters: 2011. That is the year the FDA approved ipilimumab, the first immune checkpoint inhibitor, for metastatic melanoma. The drug, sold as Yervoy, exists because one researcher, James P.
Allison, asked a fundamental question about the immune system in the 1990s and answered it. Allison, now a professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, discovered that the CTLA-4 protein on T cells acts as a brake on the immune system.
He then developed an antibody to block that brake. The bottom line: he turned a basic insight about how the body regulates its own defenses into a therapy that has transformed cancer treatment. By the numbers, the recognition has been substantial.
Allison shared the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Tasuku Honjo for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation. He also received the Lasker Award in 2015 and the Breakthrough Prize in 2016.
Investors will note that the pathway he opened — immune checkpoint inhibition — has become a multibillion-dollar field in oncology. Born in 1948, James Patrick Allison is an American immunologist. His work has transformed the treatment of melanoma and other cancers.
The mechanism is straightforward in concept: take the brakes off the immune system’s T cells so they attack tumors. The execution, of course, took years of laboratory work and clinical testing. The breakthrough came in the 1990s, when Allison identified CTLA-4’s role as an immune brake.
That discovery led directly to the antibody therapy that became Yervoy. It was the first of a new class of drugs — checkpoint inhibitors — that have since expanded to target other immune checkpoints and treat multiple cancer types.
What to watch next: researchers continue to build on Allison’s framework, combining checkpoint inhibitors with other therapies and searching for new immune brakes to release. The field he launched shows no signs of slowing down. Consult your doctor for medical advice.
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