A Nobel Mission

JUST A FEW YEARS AGO, JIM ALLISON WAS CONSIDered something of a “snake oil salesman” by other cancer researchers. The ruddy-faced, scraggly-haired scientist from Alice is used to forging his own path. He fought his high school teachers who refused to teach evolution. Later, he became convinced that the body’s immune system could be harnessed to combat cancer, even as colleagues said it would never work.

It turns out Allison was right. Now chair of immunology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Allison will head to Sweden in December to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Japanese immunologist Tasuku Honjo. Allison — who plays harmonica in a band of immunologists called The Checkpoints — developed the first immune checkpoint inhibitor drug. His research led to life-saving treatments for patients who had little chance of survival.