Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award 2015

James Allison received the 2015 Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for enhancing the body’s ability kill cancer cells. He is an an immunologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer who developed a new way to treat cancer.

Allison works with the immune system’s T cells, which scout the body for pathogens. Once they have found a pathogen they switch from scout to killer. While they are in attack mode the body will continue to supply additional killer T cells to eliminate the pathogen. Once the threat has been eliminated the T-cells production is stopped and they turn back into scout cells.

A protein called CTLA-4 is responsible for turning the T cells on and off. Allison thought the natural breaking system of the T cells might have limited the T cells ability to effectively fight cancer.

Allison was able to remove the CTLA-4 from the immune process, which allowed the T cells to continue in kill mode. The idea wasn’t well received by fellow scientists. After a few years of trying, Allison was finally able to convince a pharmaceutical company to develop a drug based on his research.

The results were remarkable and unprecedented. Clinical trials were developed to test the drug against metastatic melanoma. The drug moved the median survival by four months and no other drug had moved the median survival at all.

The anti-CTLA-4 drug improved overall survival for the first time, which kills 50 percent of patients in less than a year. About a fifth of individuals who received the antibody therapy lived four years after treatment while everyone in the control group died. More than 20 percent of 5000 participants treated with the antibody were still alive ten years after treatment.

The antibody treatment did present with significant side effects, but most could be managed.

Tags: anti-cancer, cancer awareness