Elderberry syrup. Zinc. Vitamin C. My low-tech combo for mild cold. Now the cold I had over this past weekend is gone.
It is good to have some medicine for a disease.
This year's Nobel Prize went to cancer immunotherapy. Specifically, to people who found receptor proteins that regulate immune cells and that cancer cells use to evade immune attack.
One of the proteins is called PD-1, found by Dr. Honjo in Kyoto University, and another, CTLA4, investigated by Dr. Allison in Texas MD Anderson. Their studies led to a novel class of cancer drugs. The obvious usefulness appealed to the Prize committee, it seems.
Cancer is born out of our own body. But as they grow, they start to express various proteins that are not in surrounding, former kin cells. That means, in theory, cancers should be found by immune cells and eliminated.
But it does not happen, for many growing cancers. Cancers somehow evade immune attacks. That "somehow" part is regulated by surface receptor proteins, including PD-1 and CTLA4.
If we target PD1 or CTLA4, it may disrupt the way cancers evade immune cells, and help immune cells eliminate cancers again.
The theory sounds good. But there are too many good-sounding theories in science that don't work.
Most striking thing was, they worked.
For example, PD1 inhibitory antibody, called Nivolumab/Opdivo, was used against a type of late-stage cancer, for which 5-year survival rate was near zero. But the drug brought the figure to 16%. Literally, life or death difference.
Encouraged by the success, and with optimism that the drug may not be choosy about the types of cancer, many clinical trials are ongoing.
That way, we have seen many "cancer immunotherapy" reports in cancer research meetings in past several years.
In fact, a few years back in our lab, we bought anti-PD1 and CTLA4 antibodies as a research tool and did some pilot experiments to see if they are expressed in cells with genomic instability, and if they are promising target in cancer immunoprevention. (I guess I should not talk about this). Anyhow, immune-modulation is now an important therapeutic or preventive option to consider.
So I am not surprised to see them won the Prize. Congratulations, Drs. Honjo and Allison.
PS
"Cancer Immunotherapy" here is a highly specific therapeutic modality targeting "immune checkpoint". It is different from previous generation immunotherapy (like using interferon or interleukins) or from generic "immune boost" (mushrooms or garlic, anyone? Could be elderberry syrup, too).
