Bio-bibliography

USA

James P. Allison and Robert D. Schreiber

2017 Balzan Prize for Immunological Approaches in Cancer Therapy

Professors Schreiber and Allison have played transformative roles in the field of tumor immunology. Schreiber demonstrated that the immune system is crucially involved in fighting and shaping cancer and introduced the concept of cancer immunoediting, especially as it pertains to immune escape. Allison unraveled the molecular bases of this escape and succeeded to block it by monoclonal antibody therapy, increasing for the first time the survival of patients with metastatic melanoma. Both have collaborated with other scientists recently in the identification of tumor specific neoantigens, an approach that might lead to the development of effective personalized cancer-specific vaccines.

Biographical and Bibliographical Data

James P. Allison, born in Alice, Texas, on 7 August 1948, is a US citizen. After moving to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas in 2012, Allison has served as Chairman of the Department of Immunology, Executive Director of the Immunotherapy Platform, and Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine, as well as a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Association for Cancer Research.
He earned his BS in Microbiology in 1969 and his PhD in Biological Science in 1973, both from the University of Texas in Austin. From 1974 to 1977, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Molecular Immunology at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, California.
Allison was Assistant Biochemist and Assistant Professor of Biochemistry from 1974 to 1977 and Associate Biochemist and Associate Professor of Biochemistry from 1983 to 1984, at the University of Texas System Cancer Center in Smithville. In 1985 he was appointed Professor of Immunology and Director of the Cancer Research Laboratory at the University of California in Berkeley. In 2004, he moved to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York to become Director of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, where he became Chair of the Immunology Program as well as the Koch Chair in Immunologic Studies. He was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator from 1997 to 2012.

Among his most important publications:

Wei SC, Levine JH, Cogdill AP, Zhao Y, Anang NAS, Andrews MC, Sharma P, Wang J, Wargo JA, Pe’er D, Allison JP. Distinct Cellular Mechanisms Under- lie Anti-CTLA-4 and Anti-PD-1 Checkpoint Blockade. Cell. e-Pub 8/2017. PMID: 28803728.
Fan X, Quezada SA, Sepulveda MA, Sharma P, Allison JP. Engagement of the ICOS pathway markedly enhances efficacy of CTLA-4 blockade in cancer immunotherapy. J Exp Med 211: 715-725; 2014.
Zamarin D, Holmgaard RB, Subudhi SK, Park JS, Mansour M, Palese P, Mer- ghoub T, Wolchok JD, Allison, JP. Localized oncolytic virotherapy overco- mes systemic tumor resistance to immune checkpoint blockade immunothe- rapy. Sci. Transl. Med. 6: 226-232; 2014.
Peggs KS, Quezada SA, Chambers CA, Korman AJ, Allison JP. Blockade of CTLA-4 on both effector and regulatory T-cell compartments contributes to the antitumor activity of anti-CTLA-4 antibodies. J Exp Med 206: 1717-1725; 2009.
Segal NH, Parsons DW, Peggs KS, Velculescu V, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Alli- son JP. Epitope Landscape in Breast and Colorectal Cancer. Cancer Res 68: 889-892; 2008.
Quezada SA, Peggs KS, Curran MA, Allison JP. CTLA-4-blockade and GMCSF combination immunotherapy increases effector frequencies altering the in- tra-tumor balance of effector and regulatory T-cells. J Clin Invest 7: 1935-45; 2006.
Van Elsas A, Hurwitz AA, Allison JP. Combination immunotherapy of B16 melanoma using anti-cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) and granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF)-produ- cing vaccines induces rejection of subcutaneous and metastatic tumors ac- companied by autoimmune depigmentation. J Exp Med 190: 355-366; 1999.
Leach DR, Krummel MF, Allison JP. Enhancement of Antitumor Immunity by CTLA-4 Blockade. Science 271: 1734-1736; 1996.
Krummel M, Allison JP. CD28 and CTLA-4 have opposing effects on the re- sponse of T-cells to stimulation. J Exp Med 182: 459-465; 1995.
Harding FA, McArthur JG, Gross JA, Raulet DH, Allison JP. CD28 mediated signaling co-stimulates murine T-cells and prevents induction of anergy in T- cell clones. Nature 356: 607-609; 1992.

Robert D. Schreiber, born in Rochester, New York, on 25 April 1946, is a US citizen.
He currently holds several positions at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis: the Andrew M. and Jane M. Bursky Distinguished Professor at the Department of Pathology and Immunology, Professor of Molecular Microbiology, Director at the Andrew M. and Jane M. Bursky Center for Human Immunology and Immunotherapy Programs and Program Co-Leader in Tumor Immunology at the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center. Schreiber is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the Ameri- can Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the US National Academy of Sciences. He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1968 and his PhD in biochemistry and immunology from the same Institute in 1973, and also held a postdoctoral fellowship.
After completing further postdoctoral training at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, Schreiber joined its faculty, rising to the level of tenured associate member. In 1985, he was recruited to Washington University as a professor of pathology, and, in 1990, was named the first Alumni Endowed Professor of Pathology and Immunology. He led the Graduate Program in Immunology from 1990 to 2003 and has been the co-leader of the tumor immunology program of the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center since 1998.

He has delivered numerous invited lectures and authoring extensively peerreviewed publications. Among his over 300 articles we would cite:

Noguchi T, Ward JP, Gubin MM, Arthur CD, Lee SH, Hundal J, Selby MJ, Gra- ziano RF, Mardis, ER, Korman AJ, Schreiber RD. Temporally distinct PD-L1 expression by tumor and host cells contributes to immune escape. Cancer Immunology Research 2017. 5: 106-117. PMCID: PMC5510474 DOI: 10.1158/2326-6066.
Johanns TM, Ward JP, Miller CA, Wilson C, Kobayashi DK, Bender D, Fu Y, Alexandrov A, Mardis ER, Artyomov MN, Schreiber RD, Dunn GP. Endogenous neoantigen-specific CD8 T-cells identified in two glioblastoma mo- dels using a cancer immunogenomics approach. Cancer Immunology Rese- arch 2016 PMID 27799140 DOI: 10.1158/2326-6066.CIR-16-0156.
Griffith OL, Chan SR, Griffith M, Krysiak K, Skidmore ZL, Hundal J, Allen JA, Arthur CD, Runci D, Bugatti M, Miceli AP, Schmidt H, Trani L, Kanchi KL, Miller CA, Schreiber RD, et al. Truncating prolactin receptor mutations pro- mote tumor growth in murine estrogen receptor-alpha mammary carcino- mas. Cell Reports 2016. 17: 249-60. PMID 27681435 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2016.08.076.
Schumacher TN, Schreiber RD. Neoantigens in cancer immunotherapy. Science 2015 (New York, NY). 348: 69-74. PMID 25838375 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa4971.
Gubin MM, Zhang X, Schuster H, Caron E, Ward JP, Noguchi T, Ivanova Y, Hundal J, Arthur CD, Krebber WJ, Mulder GE, Toebes M, Vesely MD, Lam SS, Korman AJ, Allison JP, Freeman GJ, Sharpe AH, Pearce EL, Schumacher TN, Aebersold R, Rammensee HG, Melief CJ, Mardis ER, Gillanders WE, Artyomov MN, Schreiber RD. Checkpoint blockade cancer immunotherapy targets tumor-specific mutant antigens. Nature 2014; 515: 577-581. PMCID: PMC4279952.
Matsushita H, Vesely MD, Koboldt DC, Rickert CG, Uppaluri R, Magrini VJ, Arthur CD, White JM, Chen YS, Shea LK, Hundal J, Wendl MC, Demeter R, Wylie T, Allison JP, Smyth MJ, Old LJ, Mardis ER, Schreiber RD. Cancer exome analysis reveals a T-cell-dependent mechanism of cancer immunoedi- ting. Nature 2012; 482: 400-404. PMCID: PMC3874809.
Dunn GP, Bruce AT, Sheehan KCF, Shankaran V, Uppaluri R, Bui JD, Diamond MS, Koebel CM, Arthur C, White JM, Schreiber RD. A critical function for Type I interferons in cancer immunoediting. Nature Immunology 2005; 6: 722-729.
Dunn GP, Old LJ, Schreiber RD. The Three Es of Cancer Immunoediting. An- nual Review Immunology 22: 329-360, 2004.
Shankaran V, Ikeda H, Bruce AT, White JM, Swanson PE, Old LJ, Schreiber RD. IFNy and lymphocytes prevent primary tumour development and shape tumour immunogenicity. Nature 2001; 410: 1107-1111.
Kaplan DH, Shankaran V, Dighe AS, Stocker E, Aguet M, Old LJ, Schreiber RD. Demonstration of an IFNy dependent tumor surveillance system in im- munocompetent mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1998; 95: 7556-7561.
Rodig SJ, Meraz MA, White JM, Lampe PA, Riley JK, Arthur CD, King KL, Sheehan KCF, Yin L, Pennica D, Johnson EM, Schreiber, RD. Disruption of the Jak1 gene demonstrates obligatory and nonredundant roles of the Jaks in cytokine-induced biologic responses. Cell 1998; 93: 373-383.