Gordon Freeman, Harvard Medical School professor of medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Arlene Sharpe, the Kolokotrones University Professor and chair of the Department of Immunology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS, have been awarded the inaugural Gretener-Thürlemann Prize by the University of Zurich.
The prize, worth 500,000 Swiss francs or approximately $625,000, recognizes outstanding researchers in medicine, chemistry and physics for foundational and pioneering research of societal benefit.
Freeman and Sharpe were honored for decades of discoveries that proved pivotal for the development of immune checkpoint inhibitors — immunotherapies that have transformed cancer treatment for millions of patients worldwide and infused newfound energy into the field.
“We are delighted to receive this recognition on behalf of the work of our teams and all the researchers involved,” Sharpe and Freeman said. “We are honored to be the first recipients of this important award.”
The two researchers have been married since 1978 and have been working together since the 1980s to better understand the immune system and the therapeutic potential of directing immune response.
Shared lives, shared research
Since first meeting in German class as Harvard undergraduates, Freeman and Sharpe have shared their lives and their research interests. In the 1980s, the two collaborated on work on the B7 protein, which contributes to the immune system’s response to pathogens. Their first joint publication was a 1993 paper in Science describing their work on B7.
Beginning in the 1990s, the pair discovered important signaling pathways that inhibit the immune response to tumors. T cells play an important role in this process.
Proteins on T-cell surfaces, including the protein PD-1, stimulate or inhibit T-cell activity. Freeman and Sharpe discovered that the proteins PD-L1 and PD-L2, which are produced by cancer cells, among others, can interact with PD-1.
