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| Landmark cancer therapy wins Nobel prize | Landmark cancer therapy wins Nobel prize |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Two scientists who discovered how to fight cancer using the body's immune system have won the 2018 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine. | Two scientists who discovered how to fight cancer using the body's immune system have won the 2018 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine. |
| The work by James P Allison, from the US, and Tasuku Honjo, from Japan, has led to treatments for advanced, deadly skin cancer. | The work by James P Allison, from the US, and Tasuku Honjo, from Japan, has led to treatments for advanced, deadly skin cancer. |
| Immune checkpoint therapy has revolutionised cancer treatment, said the prize-giving Swedish Academy. | Immune checkpoint therapy has revolutionised cancer treatment, said the prize-giving Swedish Academy. |
| Experts say it has proved to be "strikingly effective". | Experts say it has proved to be "strikingly effective". |
| Allison, a professor at the University of Texas, and Honjo, a professor at Kyoto University, will share the Nobel prize sum of nine million Swedish kronor - about $1.01 million or 870,000 euros. | Allison, a professor at the University of Texas, and Honjo, a professor at Kyoto University, will share the Nobel prize sum of nine million Swedish kronor - about $1.01 million or 870,000 euros. |
| Accepting the prize, Tasuku Honjo told reporters: "I want to continue my research ... so that this immune therapy will save more cancer patients than ever." | |
| Treating the untreatable | Treating the untreatable |
| Our immune system protects us from disease, but it has built in safeguards or to stop it from attacking our own tissue. | Our immune system protects us from disease, but it has built in safeguards or to stop it from attacking our own tissue. |
| Some cancers can take advantage of those "brakes" and the dodge attack too. | Some cancers can take advantage of those "brakes" and the dodge attack too. |
| Allison and Honjo discovered a way to unleash our immune cells to attack tumours by turning off proteins that put the brakes on. | Allison and Honjo discovered a way to unleash our immune cells to attack tumours by turning off proteins that put the brakes on. |
| And that has led to the development of new drugs that offer hope to patients with advanced and previously untreatable cancer. | And that has led to the development of new drugs that offer hope to patients with advanced and previously untreatable cancer. |
| Immune checkpoint therapy is being used by the NHS to treat people with the most serious form of skin cancer, melanoma. | Immune checkpoint therapy is being used by the NHS to treat people with the most serious form of skin cancer, melanoma. |
| It doesn't work for everyone, but for some patients it appears to have worked incredibly well, getting rid of the tumour entirely, even after it had started to spread around the body. | |
| Such remarkable results had never been seen before for patients like these. | |
| Doctors have also been using the treatment help some people with advanced lung cancer. | |
| Medicine is the first of the Nobel Prizes awarded each year. | |
| The literature prize will not be handed out this year after the awarding body was affected by a sexual misconduct scandal. | |
| Previous winners | |
| 2017- Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young for unravelling how bodies keep a circadian rhythm or body clock | |
| 2016 - Yoshinori Ohsumi for discovering how cells remain healthy by recycling waste. | |
| 2015 - William C Campbell, Satoshi Ōmura and Youyou Tu for anti-parasite drug discoveries. | |
| 2014 - John O'Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser for discovering the brain's navigating system. | |
| 2013 - James Rothman, Randy Schekman, and Thomas Sudhof for their discovery of how cells precisely transport material. | |
| 2012 - Two pioneers of stem cell research - John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka - were awarded the Nobel after changing adult cells into stem cells. | |
| 2011 - Bruce Beutler, Jules Hoffmann and Ralph Steinman shared the prize after revolutionising the understanding of how the body fights infection. | |
| 2010 - Robert Edwards for devising the fertility treatment IVF which led to the first "test tube baby" in July 1978. | |
| 2009 - Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for finding the telomeres at the ends of chromosomes. |