🔗 Share this article

The Nobel Prize in medical science has been awarded for revolutionary discoveries that clarify how the body's defense network targets harmful pathogens while protecting the body's own cells.

A trio of renowned scientists—Japan's Shimon Sakaguchi and American experts Dr. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—received this accolade.

The work identified specialized "security guards" within the defense system that eliminate rogue immune cells that could harming the organism.

These discoveries are now enabling innovative therapies for autoimmune diseases and cancer.

The winners will divide a prize fund valued at 11m SEK.

Crucial Findings

"Their research has been essential for comprehending how the body's defenses functions and why we don't all suffer from severe self-attack conditions," commented the chair of the Nobel Committee.

This team's research address a core question: How does the immune system defend us from countless invaders while keeping our own tissues intact?

Our body's protection system uses immune cells that search for indicators of disease, including pathogens and germs it has not met before.

Such defenders employ detectors—known as recognition units—that are produced by chance in a vast number of combinations.

That provides the immune system the ability to combat a wide array of invaders, but the unpredictability of the process unavoidably creates white blood cells that may target the host.

Protectors of the Body

Researchers previously knew that a portion of these problematic white blood cells were destroyed in the thymus—where white blood cells develop.

This year's Nobel Prize recognizes the discovery of T-reg cells—known as the body's "security guards"—which patrol the body to disarm any immune cells that attack the body's own tissues.

It is known that this process fails in self-attack conditions such as type-1 diabetes, MS, and RA.

The Nobel panel stated, "The discoveries have established a novel area of research and spurred the development of innovative therapies, for example for cancer and autoimmune diseases."

In malignancies, T-regs prevent the body from fighting the growth, so studies are focused on lowering their quantity.

For self-attack disorders, trials are exploring increasing T-reg cells so the organism is no longer under attack. A similar method could also be effective in minimizing the chances of transplanted organ failure.

Innovative Experiments

Professor Sakaguchi, of a Japanese institution, performed experiments on mice that had their thymus removed, leading to autoimmune disease.

He showed that introducing defense cells from healthy animals could stop the illness—suggesting there was a system for blocking immune cells from attacking the body.

Dr. Brunkow, from the a research center in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, currently at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, were studying an genetic immune disorder in rodents and people that led to the identification of a gene vital for the way T-regs operate.

"Their pioneering work has revealed how the body's defenses is kept in check by regulatory T cells, preventing it from mistakenly targeting the body's own tissues," commented a leading biological science expert.

"The work is a striking illustration of how fundamental biological study can have broad consequences for public health."