Former Berkeley professor wins Nobel Prize in Medicine

BERKELEY, Calif. (KGO) -- A former Berkeley professor has received the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering a new cancer treatment.

James Allison received the award along with Tasuku Honjo. The two men discovered a cancer treatment called immune checkpoint theory. It uses the body's immune system to attack cancer cells.

Allison first started this research in a lab at Berkeley in the 1990s. Allison was a professor there from 1985 to 2004. He currently works at University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.