Was pioneering Chinese scientist Chen Lieping ‘unfairly overlooked’ for Nobel Medicine Prize?
Scientists and state media complain immunotherapy pioneer’s work should have been recognised alongside US and Japanese prizewinners
Chinese scientists and state media have complained that the renowned immunologist Chen Lieping has been “unfairly overlooked” in the award of this year’s Nobel Medicine Prize, which went to American and Japanese scientists.
Chen, based at Yale University, has been researching the same area of medicine for years and is also considered a “crucial contributor” to a novel cancer treatment.
James Allison, from the MD Anderson Cancer Centre in the US, and Tasuku Honjo, from Kyoto University in Japan, shared this year’s Nobel Prize for their contribution to cancer immunotherapy, a treatment that uses the human body’s immune system to attack tumour cells.
The novel method, which has fewer side-effects than traditional treatments like chemotherapy, has led to the development an entirely new class of drugs.
“Chen is the one who really translated the discovery into clinical practice,” said Tony Mok Shu-kam, chairman of the department of clinical oncology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, “whereas Honjo and Allison are the discoverers”.
Mok explained that cancer immunotherapy scientists could be divided into two types – discoverers who “basically discover something new from fundamental research” and translational scientists who “move it along toward clinical practice” – along with the doctors who actually run the trials in hospitals.
He also pointed out that Nobel committees often prefer to focus on discoverers when awarding the prize.