Coalition takes down booby-trapped boats
Proteins act as brakes on body’s immune system
JEDDAH, Oct 1, (KUNA): The Joint Forces Command of the coalition supporting legitimacy in Yemen announced Sunday the interception and destruction of two booby-trapped boats belonging to the Houthi militias targeting Saudi Arabia’s southern port of Jazan.
A statement by coalition’s spokesman Colonel Turki Al-Maliki, said that the Royal Saudi Navy forces spotted the boats that were dispatched by the Iranianbacked Houthis.
The forces then intercepted and destroyed the remotely-controlled boats according to the rules of engagement, said Al-Maliki.
He stressed that the coalition would “strike with an iron fist” anyone involved in terrorist activity, which threatens the safety and security of citizens, residents in Saudi Arabia.
Al-Maleki added, “these hostile actions cannot pass without punishing the perpetrators and those who implement them.”
STOCKHOLM, Oct 1, (Agencies): The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded Monday to two researchers from the United States and Japan for advances in discovering how the body’s immune system can fight off the scourge of cancer.
The 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) prize will be shared by James P. Allison of the University of Texas and Tasuku Honjo of Kyoto University.
Their parallel work concerned proteins that act as brakes on the body’s immune system and it constitutes “a landmark in our fight against cancer,” said a statement from the Nobel Assembly of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, which selects winners of the annual prestigious award.
Allison studied a known protein and developed the concept into a new treatment approach, while Honjo discovered a new protein that also operated as a brake on immune cells.
“I’m honored and humbled to receive this prestigious recognition,” Allison said in a statement released by the university’s MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where he is a professor.
“A driving motivation for scientists is simply to push the frontiers of knowledge. I didn’t set out to study cancer, but to understand the biology of T cells, these incredible cells that travel our bodies and work to protect us,” he said.
Allison’s and Honjo’s prize-winning work started in the 1990s and was part of significant advances in cancer immunotherapy.
“In some patients, this therapy is remarkably effective,” Jeremy Berg, editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals, told The Associated Press. “The number of different types of cancers for which this approach to immunotherapy is being found to be effective in at least some patients continues to grow.”
Therapy developed from Honjo’s work led to long-term remission in patients with metastatic cancer that had been considered essentially untreatable, the Nobel Assembly said.
Berg said that former president Jimmy Carter’s cancer, which had spread to his brain, was treated with one of the drugs developed from Honjo’s work.
Announced
The physics prize is to be announced Tuesday, followed by chemistry. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be named Friday and the economics laureate will be announced next Monday. No literature prize is being given this year.
Meanwhile, the Japanese scientist who Monday won the Nobel Prize for medicine vowed to continue his cancer treatment work to help as many sufferers as possible, saying treating patients gave him more pleasure than any award.
“I want to continue my research ... so that this immune therapy will save more cancer patients than ever,” Tasuku Honjo told reporters at Kyoto University where he is based. He described his feelings of “immense joy” when people told him they had recovered from severe illnesses due to his work.
He said a member of his golf club, whom he did not know well, came up to him one day and thanked him, saying: “Thanks to your medicine. I had lung cancer and I thought I was playing my last round of golf, but now I am able to play golf again.”
“When you hear things like that, there is no greater happiness. I have never been happier than that. Honestly, no award can replace that. I felt it was enough,” said Honjo. “On top of that, I am receiving such an award. I really feel I am a fortunate person.”
Honjo said he heard the news of his award while he was discussing academic papers with colleagues and it came “completely out of the blue.”
“Of course, I was very happy, delighted at the same time, but shocked.”
During the press conference, Honjo took a call from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who congratulated the scientist, saying he was “so proud as a fellow Japanese.” Abe said someone he knew was saved by treatment resulting from the professor’s research.
“The professor’s achievement has given rays of hope to many cancer patients,” said Abe.
Honjo won the prize, along with US scientist James Allison, for research into how the body’s natural defenses can fight cancer.
But he said he also has ambitions to go round the golf course in the same number of shots at his age.
“I am 76 now. My biggest goal is to hit 76 in golf.”
Medicine is the first of the Nobel Prizes awarded each year. The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were created in accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901.