The Royal Swedish Academy has announced the first Nobel Prize winners for this year. The Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to James Ellison and Tasuku Honjo. According to the Nobel Committee, the prize was awarded for “the discovery of anticancer therapy by suppressing negative immune regulation.”
The discoveries that formed the basis of this scientific work, were made back in the 1990s. James Ellison, working in California, studied an important component of the immune system - a protein that, like a brake, restrains the immune response mechanism. If you free the cells of the immune system from this brake, the body will be much more active in recognizing and destroying tumor cells. Japanese immunologist Tasuku Honjo discovered another component of this regulatory system, operating through a slightly different mechanism. In the 2010s, the discoveries of immunologists formed the basis effective therapy oncological diseases.
The human immune system is forced to maintain a balance: it recognizes and attacks all proteins foreign to the body, but does not touch the body’s own cells. This balance is especially delicate in the case of cancer cells: genetically they are no different from healthy cells in the body. The function of the CTLA4 protein, which James Ellison worked with, is to serve control point immune response and prevent the immune system from attacking its own proteins. The PD1 protein, the subject of Tasuku Honjo’s scientific interests, is a component of the “programmed cell death” system. Its function is also to prevent an autoimmune reaction, but it acts in a different way: it triggers or controls the mechanism of cell death of T-lymphocytes.
Cancer immunotherapy is one of the most promising directions modern oncology. It's based on pushing immune system patient to recognize and destroy malignant tumor cells. The scientific discoveries of this year's Nobel laureates formed the basis for highly effective anticancer drugs that have already been approved for use. Specifically, Keytruda targets the PD1 protein, a receptor for programmed cell death. The drug was approved for use in 2014 and is used to treat non-small cell lung cancer and melanoma. Another drug, Ipilimumab, attacks the CTLA4 protein - the very “brake” of the immune system - and thereby activates it. This medicine is used in patients with lung or prostate cancer. late stages, and in more than half of the cases it helps to stop further tumor growth.
James Ellison and Tasuku Honjo became the 109th and 110th winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, which has been awarded since 1901. Among the laureates of previous years are two Russian scientists: Ivan Pavlov (1904) and Ilya Mechnikov (1908). It is interesting that Ilya Mechnikov received his prize with the wording “For work on immunity,” that is, for achievements in the same field of biological science as the 2018 laureates.
In 2017, Nobel Prize winners in medicine discovered how it works biological clock, which directly affect the health of the body. Scientists not only managed to explain how everything happens, but also proved that frequent disruption of these rhythms leads to an increased risk of disease.
Today the site will tell not only about this important discovery, but also remember other scientists whose discoveries in medicine turned the world upside down. If you were not interested in the Nobel Prize before, then today you will understand how its discoveries influenced the quality of your life!
Laureates of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Medicine - what did they discover?
Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young were able to explain the mechanism of the biological clock. A group of scientists found out exactly how plants, animals and people adapt to the cyclical changes of night and day.
It turned out that the so-called circadian rhythms are regulated by period genes. At night, they encode proteins in cells that are used up during the day.
The biological clock is responsible for a number of processes in the body - hormone levels, metabolic processes, sleep and body temperature. If external environment does not correspond to internal rhythms, then we experience a deterioration in well-being. If this happens often, the risk of disease increases.
The biological clock directly affects the functioning of the body. If their rhythm does not coincide with the current environment, then not only does one feel worse, but the risk of certain diseases also increases.
Nobel Prize Laureates in Medicine: Top 10 Most Important Discoveries
Medical discoveries don't just give scientists new information, they help make a person’s life better, maintain his health, help overcome diseases and epidemics. The Nobel Prize has been awarded since 1901 - and over more than a century, many discoveries have been made. On the award website you can find a kind of rating of the personalities of scientists and their results. scientific works. Of course, it cannot be said that one medical discovery is less important than another.
1. Francis Crick- this British scientist received a prize in 1962 for his detailed research DNA structures. He was also able to reveal the importance of nucleic acids for the transmission of information from generation to generation.
3. Karl Landsteiner- immunologist who discovered in 1930 that humanity has several blood types. This made blood transfusion a safe and common practice in medicine and saved the lives of many people.
4. Tu Youyou- this woman received an award in 2015 for developing new, more effective ways treatment malaria. She discovered a drug that is produced from wormwood. By the way, it was Tu Youyou who became the first woman in China to receive the Nobel Prize in medicine.
5. Severo Ochoa- he received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the mechanisms of biological synthesis of DNA and RNA. This happened in 1959.
6. Yoshinori Ohsumi- these scientists discovered the mechanisms of autophagy. The Japanese received the award in 2016.
7. Robert Koch- probably one of the most famous Nobel Prize laureates. This microbiologist in 1905 discovered the tuberculosis bacillus, Vibrio cholera and anthrax. The discovery made it possible to begin to fight these dangerous diseases, from which many people died every year.
8. James Dewey- American biologist who, in collaboration with two of his colleagues, discovered the structure of DNG. This happened in 1952.
9. Ivan Pavlov- the first laureate from Russia, an outstanding physiologist, who in 1904 received the prize for his revolutionary work on the physiology of digestion.
10. Alexander Fleming- this outstanding bacteriologist from Great Britain discovered penicillin. This happened in 1945 - and radically changed the course of history.
Each of these outstanding people contributed to the development of medicine. It probably can't be measured material benefits or awarding titles. However, these Nobel Prize laureates, thanks to their discoveries, will forever remain in the history of mankind!
Ivan Pavlov, Robert Koch, Ronald Ross and other scientists - they all made important discoveries in the field of medicine that helped save the lives of many people. It is thanks to their work that we now have the opportunity to receive real help in hospitals and clinics, we do not suffer from epidemics, and we know how to treat various dangerous diseases.
Nobel Prize laureates in medicine are outstanding people whose discoveries helped save hundreds of thousands of lives. It is thanks to their efforts that we now have the opportunity to treat even the most complex diseases. The level of medicine has increased significantly in just one century, in which at least a dozen important discoveries for humanity occurred. However, every scientist who has been nominated for the prize already deserves respect. It is thanks to such people that we can remain healthy and full of strength throughout the world. for a long time! How much important discoveries still awaits us ahead!
Behind last years We have almost forgotten how to understand why the Nobel Prize in Medicine is awarded. The research of the laureates is so complex and incomprehensible to the ordinary mind, so ornate are the formulations explaining the reasons for its award. At first glance, the situation here is similar. How do we understand what “suppression of negative immune regulation” means? But in reality everything is much simpler, and we will prove it to you.
Firstly, the results of the laureates’ research have already been introduced into medicine: thanks to them, a new class drugs for the treatment of cancer. And they have already saved the lives of many patients or significantly extended them. The drug ipilimumab, made thanks to research James Ellison was officially registered in the United States by the Office of food products and medicines in 2011. Now there are several such drugs. All of them affect the key links in the interaction of malignant cells with our immune system. Cancer is a great deceiver and knows how to deceive our immune system. And these drugs help him restore his performance.
The secret becomes clear
This is what oncologist, doctor of medical sciences, professor, head of the scientific laboratory of cancer chemoprevention and oncopharmacology of the National Medical Research Center for Oncology named after N.N. N. N. Petrova Vladimir Bespalov:
— Nobel laureates have been conducting their research since the eighties, and thanks to them, a new direction in cancer treatment was then created: immunotherapy using monoclonal antibodies. In 2014, it was recognized as the most promising in oncology. Thanks to the research of J. Ellison and T. Honjo several new ones have been created effective drugs for the treatment of cancer. These are highly precise drugs aimed at specific targets that play a key role in the development of malignant cells. For example, the drugs nivolumab and pembrolizumab block the interaction of special proteins PD-L-1 and PD-1 with their receptors. These proteins, produced by malignant cells, help them “hide” from the immune system. As a result, tumor cells become invisible to our immune system and it cannot resist them. New drugs make them visible again, and thanks to this, the immune system begins to destroy the tumor. The first drug created thanks to Nobel laureates was ipilimumab. It was used to treat metastatic melanoma, but it had serious side effects. The new generation of drugs are safer; they treat not only melanoma, but also non-small cell lung cancer, cancer Bladder and others malignant tumors. Today there are several such drugs, and they continue to be actively researched. They are now being tested for some other types of cancer, and perhaps their range of use will be wider. Such drugs are registered in Russia, but, unfortunately, they are very expensive. A single course of administration costs more than a million rubles, and they must then be repeated. But they are more effective than chemotherapy. For example, up to a quarter of patients with advanced melanoma are completely cured. This result cannot be achieved with any other drugs.
Monoclones
All these drugs are monoclonal antibodies, absolutely similar to human ones. But it’s not our immune system that makes them. The drugs are obtained using genetic engineering technologies. Like regular antibodies, they block antigens. The latter are played by active regulatory molecules. For example, the first drug ipilimumab blocked the regulatory molecule CTLA-4, which plays vital role in protecting cancer cells from the immune system. It was this mechanism that was discovered by one of the current laureates, J. Ellison.
Monoclonal antibodies are mainstream in modern medicine. Based on them, many new drugs for serious diseases are created. For example, such drugs have recently appeared to treat high cholesterol. They specifically bind to regulatory proteins that regulate cholesterol synthesis in the liver. By turning them off, they effectively inhibit its production, and cholesterol decreases. Moreover, they act specifically on the synthesis of bad cholesterol (LDL), without affecting the production of good cholesterol (HDL). This is very expensive drugs, but their prices are dropping quickly and sharply as they become increasingly used. This used to be the case with statins. Therefore, over time, they (and, we hope, new cancer drugs too) will be more accessible.
At the beginning of October, the Nobel Committee summed up the work for 2016 in various areas of human activity that brought the greatest benefit and named the Nobel Prize nominees.
You can be skeptical about this award as much as you like, doubt the objectivity of the choice of laureates, question the value of the theories and merits put forward for nomination... All this, of course, takes place... Well, tell me, what is the value of the peace prize awarded, for example, to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990... or the similar prize that created even more noise in 2009 to American President Barack Obama for peace on the planet 🙂?
Nobel Prizes
And this year 2016 was not without criticism and discussions of new awardees, for example, the world ambiguously accepted the award of the prize in the field of literature, which went to the American rock singer Bob Dylan for his poems to songs, and the singer himself reacted even more ambiguously to the award, reacting for the award ceremony only two weeks later...
However, regardless of our philistine opinion, this high the award is considered the most prestigious award in scientific world, has been alive for more than a hundred years, has hundreds of awards to its credit, and a prize fund of millions of dollars.
The Nobel Foundation was founded in 1900 after the death of its testator Alfred Nobel- an outstanding Swedish scientist, academician, Ph.D., inventor of dynamite, humanist, peace activist, and so on...
Russia ranks on the list of awardees 7th place, has a history of awards 23 Nobel laureates or 19 awards occasions(there are group ones). The last Russian to be awarded this high honor was Vitaly Ginzburg in 2010 for his discoveries in the field of physics.
So, the awards for 2016 are divided, the awards will be presented in Stockholm, the total size of the fund is changing all the time and the size of the award is changing accordingly.
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2016
Few ordinary people far from science understand the essence scientific theories and discoveries that deserve special recognition. And I'm one of those :-) . But today I just want to dwell in a little more detail on one of the awards for this year. Why medicine and physiology? Yes, it’s simple, one of the most intense sections of my blog is “Being Healthy,” because the work of the Japanese interested me and I understood its essence a little. I think the article will be of interest to people who adhere to healthy image life.
So, the Nobel Prize winner in the field physiology and medicine for 2016 became a 71 year old Japanese man Yoshinori Ohsumi Yoshinori Ohsumi is a molecular biologist at Tokyo University of Technology. The topic of his work is “Discovery of the mechanisms of autophagy.”
Autophagy translated from Greek, “self-eating” or “self-eating” is a mechanism for processing and recycling unnecessary, used parts of the cell, which is performed by the cell itself. Simply put, the cell eats itself. Autophagy is inherent in all living organisms, including humans.
The process itself has been known for a long time. The scientist’s research, carried out back in the 90s, revealed and made it possible not only to understand in detail the importance of the autophagy process for many physiological processes occurring inside a living organism, in particular during adaptation to hunger, response to infection, but also to identify the genes that trigger this process.
How does the process of cleansing the body occur? And just like we clean up our trash at home, only automatically: cells pack all unnecessary trash and toxins into special “containers” - autophagosomes, then move them into lysosomes. This is where unnecessary proteins and damaged intracellular elements are digested, and fuel is released, which is used to nourish cells and build new ones. It's that simple!
But what is most interesting in this study is that autophagy starts faster and proceeds more powerfully in cases where the body experiences stress and especially during FASTING.
The discovery of the Nobel Prize winner proves: religious fasting and even periodic, limited hunger are still beneficial for a living organism. Both of these processes stimulate autophagy, cleansing the body, relieve the burden on the digestive organs, thereby saving from premature aging.
Failures in autophagy processes lead to diseases such as Parkinson's, diabetes mellitus and even cancer. Doctors are looking for ways to combat them using medications. Or maybe you just need not to be afraid to subject your body to health-improving fasting, thereby stimulating renewal processes in cells? At least occasionally...
The scientist’s work once again confirmed how amazingly subtle and clever our body is, and how far not all the processes in it are known...
The Japanese scientist will receive a well-deserved prize of eight million Swedish kronor (932 thousand US dollars) along with other recipients in Stockholm on December 10, the day of Alfred Nobel’s death. And I think it’s well deserved...
Were you even a little interested? How do you feel about such conclusions from the Japanese? Do they make you happy?
Every year, on December 10, one of the most prestigious awards in the field is awarded in Stockholm. scientific achievements- Nobel Prize. On Monday, October 1, it became known names of the first Nobel laureates of 2018. 70 year old professor University of Texas James Ellison and his 76-year-old colleague Tasuku Honjo from Kyoto University received the highest honor for their significant contributions to cancer therapy.
"So simple!" will tell you the latest and explain what is important new approach scientists have proposed a treatment for cancer and how it will change modern medicine.
Nobel Prize in Medicine
The concept of “cancer” is not just one disease, there are a lot of them, and they are all characterized by the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells that can absorb completely healthy organs and tissues human body. Cancer takes the lives of hundreds of people every hour, and for modern healthcare this disease is the most a big problem and one of the biggest challenges.
The Nobel laureates put forward an extremely innovative approach to cancer therapy: James Ellison and Tasuku Honjo showed how to “take the brakes off the immune system” and use the body’s own powers to fight a terrible disease.
“This year’s laureates have shown how different strategies to curb the immune system can be used to treat cancer. Their joint discovery is a significant milestone in the fight against cancer.", said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
“Immune therapy does not have an independent antitumor effect - it causes immune cells kill the tumor. True, releasing the brake in some cases leads to the immune system attacking its own cells.
This is somewhat similar to autoimmune diseases, and the problem is not small. Frequent side effects are fatigue, cough, nausea, rash, itching, loss of appetite, diarrhea, inflammation of the intestines and lungs,” explains oncologist Mikhail Laskov.
The domestic oncologist has no doubt that such therapy will be a real breakthrough: “There are diseases that are difficult to treat. These are melanoma, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, stomach cancer and so on. Immunotherapy has significantly improved outcomes for some of these diseases, namely melanoma and lung cancer. Some cancer patients, according to the results of the study, can live for several years without signs of the disease.".
And if previously such therapy was used mainly for metastatic cancer in almost hopeless cases, now such drugs are prescribed as postoperative therapy, for example, for melanoma.
© DepositPhotos
Ellison and Honjo have inspired researchers around the world to combine different strategies to activate the immune system to more effectively combat cancer cells. Currently, many tests are being carried out and clinical experiences in the field of cancer immunotherapy and new control proteins discovered by Nobel laureates are being tested as a target.
© DepositPhotos
Many immunotherapy drugs There are cancers in Russia, but they are all very expensive and accessible to a few. “These are, for example, pembrolizumab (Keytruda), nivolumab (Opdivo), ipilimumab (Yervoy) and atezolizumab (Tecentriq). Unfortunately, it cannot be said that such medicines are available to everyone.
At one rate in state hospital 180 thousand rubles can be allocated for it, although in real life the drug will cost 300 or more. That is, they simply won’t prescribe the medicine because there is nothing to buy it with,” explains Mikhail Laskov.
© DepositPhotos
In an attempt to defeat the deadly disease, scientists have tried to involve the immune system in the fight against cancer for 100 years, but all attempts were in vain. Until the discoveries made by James Ellison and Tasuku Honjo, clinical progress in this area was very modest.
