French scientist wins ‘science Oscar’ for cancer work
FRENCH-Canadian scientist Michel Sadelain was awarded an “Oscars of Science” prize in Los Angeles on Saturday for his research into genetically modifying immune cells to fight cancer.
The genetic engineer was awarded the Breakthrough Prize at a glitzy ceremony attended by tech giants such as Elon Musk and Bill Gates, and an array of celebrities including Jessica Chastain, Robert Downey Jr. and Bradley Cooper.
His work has led to the development of a new form of therapy called CAR-T that has shown exceptional efficacy against certain blood cancers.
Launched in 2010, the Breakthrough Prize awards “the world’s most brilliant minds” in fields including life sciences, fundamental physics and mathematics, styling itself as the Silicon Valley-backed answer to the Nobels. Dubbed the “Oscars for Science”, founding sponsors include Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg.
Sadelain will split the $3 million (about R56m) prize money with American immunologist Carl June, who also led groundbreaking research into the field independently of his co-winner.
Sadelain studied medicine in Paris, then immunology in Canada, before taking up postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989.
After moving to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, Sadelain developed a way to use a disabled virus to genetically reprogram human T-cells, so that they grew clawlike structures called antigen receptors, allowing the T-cells to target specific cancer cells.
Beyond recognising the cancer, these Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cells were also given genetic instructions to enter a killing mode and to multiply, growing an army inside the body to eliminate the enemy.
Thanks to the groundwork laid by Sadelain and June, half a dozen US-approved CAR-T cell therapies are now available, and hundreds more trials are underway.
Patients’ own T-cells are collected, modified outside the body, and then infused back into the blood, creating so-called “living drugs”.