Washington, Oct 1: James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo have been jointly awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology.
Announcing the award, the Nobel committee said that James Allison had studied a protein that "functions as a brake on the immune system". Allison's study of helped the American immunologist realise the potential of "releasing the brake and unleashing" the human body's immune cells to attack tumours.
Tasuku Honjo, a Japanese immunologist, on the other hand, discovered a similar protein that also operates as a "brake", but with a "different mechanism of action".