In 2011, Ralph M. Steinman was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology for the contribution of researching the dendritic cells in long term to commend his outstanding contribution to immune industry. In 2013, the immune cell therapy was inferred to the most breakthrough scientific development in Science journal, which became a choice of cancer treatment and could replace the traditional therapy in the future. In addition, in 2014, American Society of Clinical Oncology issued several data of clinical trial on immune cell therapy, which could speed up the time of verification that immune cell therapy would become a standard treatment.

James P. Allision and Tasuku Honjo were issued with the first Tang Prize in 2014 and Nobel Prize in medicine in 2018. These two scientists focused on activating the immune reaction by immune check points to attack the tumor cells.