Winners Recognised at the Economist’s Innovation Awards 2013

Last night a professor from Texas was recognised as the winner of the Bioscience category at The Economist’s Innovation Awards 2013. Professor James Allison was honoured for his life changing contribution to the fight against cancer.

James , Professor and Chair at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre Department of Immunology, has spent the majority of his career developing the ground breaking cancer drug, ipilimumab. Ipilimumab is a cancer drug used to treat advanced melanoma, it blocks CTLA-4 and thus allows the immune system to recognise and attack cancer cells.

About 25% of patients with late-stage metastatic melanoma who were treated with ipilimumab in clinical trials have lived for five years or longer, making it the first drug to improve the survival rate of such patients.

INNOVATION AWARDS

Now in their 12th year, The Economist’s Innovation Awards 2013 recognise significant contributions in eight fields:

• ·         Bioscience
• ·         Computing and Telecommunications
• ·         Consumer Products
• ·         Energy and Environment
• ·         No Boundaries
• ·         Process and Services
• ·         Social and Economic
• ·         Corporate

This video features interviews with the winners as they discuss how their innovations have made a difference to their industries and their thoughts on the importance of driving innovation.

The awards were held last night at the BAFTA theatre in London, where Ken Jones, President and Chief Executive Officer of Astellas Pharma Europe who sponsored this year’s Bioscience category, presented the award to Professor Allison.

more about The Economist’s Innovation Awards and the winners

Biography

James Allison began his research career in 1978, focusing on cancer and the immune system. After years of studying why T-cells failed to recognise or attack certain cancer cells, Allison identified a molecule called CTLA-4 which suppressed the immune response. He developed an antibody against CTLA-4, called ipilimumab, which was approved in 2011 for use against metastatic melanoma.

Because this approach treats the immune system, not the tumour directly, it’s now in clinical trials for a variety of other cancers.

Allison and other researchers hope that anti-CTLA-4 may be just the first of a series of anti-cancer immunotherapies. Treating the immune system, rather than specific tumours, is an approach that will work across many types of cancer, Allison notes. Allison today is professor and chair of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre Department of Immunology.