News Roundup: MD Anderson Cancer Researcher Awarded Nobel Prize

Our daily look at Texas headlines.

By Becky FogelOctober 1, 2018 1:09 pm

The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state.

Today, James P. Allison, chair of immunology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center was awarded a 2018 Nobel Prize. Allison is sharing the honor with another cancer researcher. Secretary of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, Thomas Perlmann, made the announcement earlier today.

“The Nobel Assembly today decided to award the 2018 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine jointly to James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo,” Perlmann says.

Both Allison and Honjo won the prize for their separate work on cancer immunotherapy, which essentially trains the body’s immune system to attack cancer cells the same way it attacks bacteria and viruses.

MD Anderson released a video today congratulating Dr. Allison. It features an interview with the scientist, who apparently also plays harmonica.


“I came to MD Anderson for a couple of reasons: the most important one, I think, is there’s a lot more openness here, too, and willingness of people to work with each other. I’m not an MD, I’m a scientist. So, I have to work with the doctors to design what we’re doing in the clinical trials. When you get it together and everybody’s playing together, it’s really special,” Allison says in the video.

Allison received his bachelor and doctorate degrees at the University of Texas at Austin. He’s spent decades studying the body’s immune cells, creating an anti-cancer drug that he’s currently testing, with success so far, in clinical trials.




The corn dogs are sizzling and Big Tex is looming over crowds offering a friendly “Howdy Folks.” That’s right, the State Fair of Texas, in Dallas, opened at the end of last week.

Melissa Tate was at Fair Park when the gates opened Friday morning. She told KERA News she tries to go to the State Fair every day.

“I love the State Fair of Texas because it’s about tradition, and even living in a big city like Dallas, it really still feels like a small county fair. And Big Tex and all the food – I have to live it up for those 24 days,” Tate says.

The State Fair runs through Sunday, Oct. 21.




Fresh off Friday’s debate with his Democratic challenger, Lupe Valdez, Gov. Greg Abbott is weighing in on the U.S. Senate Race in Texas. Abbott appeared on the program “Fox and Friends” Monday morning.

The Governor came out swinging against Congressman Beto O’Rourke, the El Paso Democrat trying to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.

“Listen, he’s been a cult-like, very popular figure, the way he’s run the campaign, but you don’t vote on cult, you don’t vote on personality when you get to the United States Senate, you vote on the issues,” Abbott said on the show.

The last day to register to vote in the November General Election is Oct. 9. Early voting begins on Oct. 22.