Thirty years ago, in November 1992, Ishida, Honjo and their collaborators reported the discovery of the #PD1 gene in @embojournal
https://www.embopress.org/doi/abs/10.1002/j.1460-2075.1992.tb05481.x
I spoke with Tasuku Honjo, Pierre Golstein (whose team first cloned #CTLA4) & Facundo Batista about the discovery earlier this year.
The initial project had absolutely nothing to do with checkpoints or #immunotherapy
Listen to the full #EMBOPodcast episode at the link below or on pretty much any podcast app
#Immunology #HistoryScience #Cancer #CellDeath
https://www.embo.org/podcasts/from-cell-death-to-cancer-immunotherapy/
@cyrilpedia @embojournal bring up a point that is fascinating and scary at the same time: serendipity, genius and the prepared mind...and enough funding to go through until the (surprising) findings roll in... How will we look at our next project proposal? Regardless if as submitter or as a reviewer...
There's yet another layer here - the serendipitous nature of the finding could create real problems in 2022 if the work is being funded through one of these grants that have multiple benchmarks, milestones and other pearls of MBAspeak.
(but to also be positive: it is one of my favourite parts of this episode, how Dr Honjo gives the clear credit to Ishida for initiating the project - in fact insisting on it when it deviated from the lab's main research line.)
@cyrilpedia @embojournal is certainly indicating one of the truly fascinating moments...scientifically and on a personal level...