--- description: James Allison is on the TIME 100 2017 list. Alice Park wrote about the scientist. title: James Allison by Alice Park: TIME 100 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3590bdda5ac3ace7/6988c3412dce01281b9ed143/time-100-2017-james-p-allison.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 19, 2017 # James Allison by Alice Park  US immunotherapist James P. Allison in front of representatives from the media after a press conference on the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 14 March 2015\. Allison, together with Carl H. June, is receiving the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, which includes prize money of 100,000 euros. Allison developed an immunotheraphy against melanoma, June against leukemia. Photo by: Christoph Schmidt/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images US immunotherapist James P. Allison in front of representatives from the media after a press conference on the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 14 March 2015\. Allison, together with Carl H. June, is receiving the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, which includes prize money of 100,000 euros. Allison developed an immunotheraphy against melanoma, June against leukemia. Photo by: Christoph Schmidt/picture-alliance/dpa/AP ImagesPhotograph by Christoph Schmidt—AP Cancer hasn’t been kind to James Allison. It claimed his mother, brother and two uncles, and he himself was diagnosed with both prostate cancer and melanoma. So it’s not entirely surprising that growing up in a football-crazy town in South Texas, young Allison kept a science lab in his family’s garage instead of helmets and pads. And though the MD Anderson immunologist didn’t set out to cure cancer, his curiosity about it could result in just that. Cancer is a tricky kind of disease—one that escapes the body’s natural defenses against foreign agents. For decades, scientists tried to find ways to train the immune system to attack tumors in the way it does bacteria or viruses. But since cancerous cells are born from normal cells, that seemed an impossible task. It was Allison who figured out how to switch immune cells on to target malignant tumors. The drug he created is now spawning a new generation of immunotherapy treatments that experts hope will be less toxic and more aggressive than what’s available now. His discoveries have already saved thousands of lives—and they’re also forever changing what it means to have cancer. _Park is the senior health writer for TIME_ James Allison by Alice Park: TIME 100 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4742750/james-allison/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4742750/james-allison/"},"headline":"James Allison","datePublished":"2017-04-19T17:24:53.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T07:22:25.683Z","description":"James Allison is on the TIME 100 2017 list. 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