2018 Nobel Prize for medicine awarded to James Allison, Tasuku Honjo

James Allison and Tasuku Honjo won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discoveries leading to breakthroughs in cancer therapy, the award-giving body said on Monday.    

"Allison and Honjo showed how different strategies for inhibiting the brakes on the immune system can be used in the treatment of cancer," the Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institute said in a statement on awarding the prize of 9 million Swedish crowns ($1 million).

Medicine is the first of the Nobel Prizes awarded each year. 

The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were created in accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901.

The literature prize will not be handed out this year after the awarding body was hit by a sexual misconduct scandal.