ACS Award for Team Innovation 2018 Recipients List
The American Chemical Society awarded the 2018 ACS Award for Team Innovation to the team behind the development of Keytruda (pembrolizumab), a cancer immunotherapy drug. The recipients included scientists from Merck Research Laboratories who worked on the drug’s discovery, preclinical development, and clinical translation.
About the Award and the Winning Team
The ACS Award for Team Innovation is given to a multidisciplinary team that has successfully moved a scientific discovery into a product that benefits society. The 2018 recipients were honored for their work on Keytruda, a PD-1 inhibitor. The team included chemists, biologists, pharmacologists, and clinicians who worked together over many years.
One concrete example of their innovation was the development of a humanized antibody that could bind specifically to the PD-1 receptor on T-cells, preventing cancer cells from turning off the immune response. This required solving problems in protein engineering, formulation, and manufacturing.
The Science Behind the Innovation
Keytruda works by blocking the PD-1 pathway, a mechanism cancer cells use to hide from the immune system. The team identified that many tumors express a protein called PD-L1, which binds to the PD-1 receptor on T-cells and switches them off. By designing an antibody that occupies the PD-1 receptor, the team prevented this interaction and allowed T-cells to remain active against the tumor.
The team faced technical hurdles, including engineering the antibody to have high affinity for PD-1 without triggering unwanted immune reactions, and ensuring it could be administered intravenously and remain stable in the body long enough to be effective. They solved these problems through iterative protein engineering and pharmacokinetic studies.
Key Takeaways
- The 2018 ACS Award for Team Innovation recognized the Merck team that developed Keytruda, a PD-1 inhibitor immunotherapy.
- The award highlights the value of cross-disciplinary collaboration, from basic research through clinical trials, in bringing a new medicine to patients.
- The team’s work led to a treatment approved for multiple cancer types, including melanoma and lung cancer.
- This award is one of several ACS national awards that honor specific achievements in chemical innovation and team science.
