January 31, 2008
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Features CRI Scientific Leader
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, one of the largest biomedical research and scientfic education philanthropies in the United States, has selected CRI Scientific Advisory Council Associate Director James P. Allison, Ph.D., as a featured HHMI scientist on the organization's Web site. Dr. Allison has made many important discoveries into how the immune system recognizes foreign pathogens and cancer, and also discovered the CTLA-4 T-cell receptor involved in the inhibition of immune system activity. In collaboration with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, Dr. Allison has developed a new immune-based therapy based on his discovery that blocks the CTLA-4 receptor and thus "takes the brakes off" the immune system during cancer therapy. In clinical trials of Dr. Allison's therapy, tumor burden has been significantly reduced in some cancer patients, while others have gone into complete remission.
Dr. Allison was feted at the 2005 CRI Annual Awards Dinner, where he received the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology. He has also recently been named a member of the Institute of Medicine—a branch of the National Academies that serves as a national resource for reference on issues related to medicine, biomedical science, and health. He will also receive the Dana Prize in Human Immunology at the April meeting of the American Association of Immunologists. In addition to serving as Associate Director of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council, Dr. Allison sits on the CRI Postdoctoral Fellowship Review Committee, is a member of the organizing committee for the CRI International Symposia Series, and has successfully mentored a number of CRI postdoctoral fellows in his laboratory at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Click here to view the HHMI profile of Dr. Allison and his work.
Contact:
Brian M. Brewer, Director of Communications
Cancer Research Institute
bbrewer@cancerresearch.org
212.688.7515, ext. 242