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T M C » P U L S E | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 8 22 "I told everyone that the person who invented this approach just walked in—Jim Allison," Ribas said. "After that, we had a very close relationship. We talk on Saturday mornings about what we are doing. It wasn't until I went to the celebration of his 70th birthday that Jim said that I was the first one to acknowledge his work in a medical oncology meeting. He said that many other people who were working on those antibodies acted as if they had invented them and there was nothing behind them." Ribas, an oncologist-researcher, had been reading Allison's papers for years and trying to replicate his work. "I emailed him at one point asking him for the mouse antibody. He didn't answer, but a week later I received the antibody in the mail and I was able to experiment," Ribas said. The first human trials of ipilimumab took place in a private oncolo- gist's California office affiliated with UCLA. Ribas referred patients to the study. One of them, Sharon Vener, had several tumors that did not shrink with other treatments. She was the first patient whose cancer responded to ipilimumab. That was in 2001. Now in her mid 60s, Vener has survived cancer for 17 years thanks to Allison. "His understanding of how the immune system is regulated led to the hypothesis that if you take away a brake, the immune system would attack some cancers. That has made a big change in the clinic and I have a bunch of patients who have benefited from that," Ribas said. Allison always pursues big ideas, but he knows there is more to life than work. "He is driven to find the truth of things," Ribas said. "Some people think the goal of their life is to write an article in Nature or Science or The New England Journal of Medicine. His motivation is to write about something important that may change how we treat cancer." At the same time, Ribas added, Allison "is a fun guy. He is some- body who enjoys life and has a lot of interests." With the band Phil Greenberg, M.D., head of the immunology program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, became friends with Allison 40 years ago during their post doc days in San Diego. Once, during a conference in Maui, Hawaii, Allison noticed a black- tie benefit in a newspaper headlined by Willie Nelson, with whom the future laureate had jammed in Texas. The scientists decided to "crash the event" in their jeans, Greenberg said. Both have long hair and Above: MD Anderson president Peter Pisters, M.D., speaks with Allison and his wife, Padmanee Sharma, M.D., Ph.D., professor in the department of genitourinary medical oncology at MD Anderson, during a press conference.