‘American Nobels’ awarded for Cancer therapy

James Allison, an immunologist at the University of Texas, took the Clinical Medical Research Award this year for discovering a new way to restore the body's natural capacity to attack tumor cells. His work led to the development of Bristol Myers-Squibb’s Yervoy, which treats the skin cancer melanoma by blocking a protein that normally limits people's ability to fight cancer cells. About 20 percent of the 5,000 people who’d been treated with the antibody were still alive a decade after treatment, impressive, given that the illness typically kills 50 percent of patients within a year.
Allison told reporters today about a meeting he had with one of the patients who received the treatment. "Everybody started crying, I started crying; it was very humbling to see," he said. "Up until that point it was just numbers, you know, mice. I'm not a physician, I very rarely see the patients, and it really moved me. That's why we all should do this."