NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE

About:

• The two have been awarded for developing a paradigm-breaking cancer therapy by “inhibition of negative immune regulation”, which has bettered the chances of full recovery in certain kinds of cancer by over three times.
  
  
• Instead of relying on external attacks on tumours with radiation and chemicals, which is the traditional method, immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy unleashes the body’s own defence system against the enemy within.
  
  
• While the technique remains under research and the and side-effects are not completely understood, six checkpoint inhibitor drugs have been approved for clinical use since 2011.
  
  
• They showed that the two proteins namely immunoglobulin cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) and the programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) inhibit the immune system’s response to cancer, and that inhibiting them would, in turn, give patients a fighting chance.
  
  
• PD-1, a receptor on the cell surface, is an ‘immune checkpoint’ which slows down the immune response and promotes self-tolerance, normally preventing auto-immune diseases.
  
  
• CTLA-4 performs a similar function on T-cells (so named because they mature in the thymus and the tonsils), which play an important role in immunity at the molecular level.