Honorary degree to James P. Allison

Professor James P. Allison, 2018 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine will be awarded an Honorary Degree in Medicine from the University of Naples Federico II.

The solemn ceremony will take place on Monday, Oct. 14, 2019, at 11 a.m., in Aula Magna "Gaetano Salvatore" of the School of Medicine and Surgery, Via S. Pansini, 5.

The program includes speeches by Gaetano Manfredi, Rector of the University, Luigi Califano, President of the School of Medicine and Surgery, and Franca Esposito, Director of the Department of Molecular Medicine and Medical Biotechnology.

This will be followed by the Laudatio Academica by Maurizio Bifulco, professor of General Pathology, and the Lectio Magistralisby James P. Allison.

The ceremony will conclude with testimonies by Gianni Marone, Professor Emeritus of Internal Medicine, and Andrea de Bartolomeis, Professor of Psychiatry.

Professor Allison born in Alice, Texas USA in 1948, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in Microbiology and later in Biological Sciences. His scientific activities and career are studded with great achievements and awards. He currently holds several positions and affiliations at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas (USA).

Allison can rightly be considered, along with Tasuku Honjo, who shared the Nobel Prize with him, the father of cancer immunotherapy studies. His research, in fact, has made it possible today to complement the cancer therapies already available-surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy- with Immunotherapy, the latest frontier of Oncology. Immunotherapy represents a momentous change in the way this disease is approached, a therapy that has revolutionized the treatment of many types of cancer with astonishing clinical results. Specifically, Allison discovered that CTLA-4 (cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4), a receptor molecule in T-lymphocytes, inhibits their activity and designed and developed a monoclonal antibody, called 'Ipilimumab' that, by binding to the receptor, is able to reactivate the lymphocytes.

The conferral of an honorary degree on Professor Allison, such a high honorary academic title in the tradition of the Federico II, is further just recognition of the research and achievements he has made in his career and the revolution brought by immunotherapy in the treatment of cancer.