🔗 Share this article

The prestigious award in medical science was awarded for revolutionary findings that illuminate how the body's defense network attacks harmful pathogens while sparing the body's own cells.

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

Their research uncovered specialized "sentinels" within the defense system that remove rogue immune cells capable of harming the body.

The discoveries are now paving the way for innovative therapies for immune disorders and cancer.

The winners will share a prize fund worth 11 million SEK.

Crucial Discoveries

"Their research has been essential for understanding how the immune system functions and why we don't all develop serious autoimmune diseases," commented the chair of the Nobel Committee.

This team's research explain a core mystery: In what way does the immune system defend us from numerous infections while keeping our own tissues unharmed?

The body's protection system employs white blood cells that scan for signs of infection, including viruses and germs it has not met before.

Such defenders employ detectors—called recognition units—that are generated by chance in a vast number of variations.

That provides the immune system the capacity to fight a wide array of invaders, but the randomness of the process inevitably produces white blood cells that may attack the host.

Protectors of the Immune System

Researchers earlier understood that some of these problematic white blood cells were destroyed in the thymus—the site where white blood cells mature.

The latest award recognizes the discovery of regulatory T-cells—described as the immune system's "security guards"—which travel through the system to disarm any defenders that attack the body's own tissues.

It is known that this mechanism fails in autoimmune diseases such as juvenile diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

A Nobel panel added, "These discoveries have laid the foundation for a new field of research and accelerated the development of new treatments, for example for cancer and autoimmune diseases."

Regarding cancer, T-regs prevent the system from fighting the growth, so studies are aimed at reducing their quantity.

In self-attack disorders, experiments are testing increasing T-reg cells so the organism is no longer being harmed. A comparable approach could also be effective in reducing the risks of organ transplant failure.

Innovative Studies

Prof Sakaguchi, from Osaka University, performed tests on mice that had their immune gland extracted, causing autoimmune disease.

He showed that injecting immune cells from other mice could prevent the illness—implying there was a system for preventing immune cells from attacking the body.

Mary Brunkow, affiliated with the Institute for Systems Biology in a US city, and Fred Ramsdell, currently at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, were studying an genetic autoimmune disease in rodents and people that led to the identification of a gene vital for how T-regs function.

"Their groundbreaking work has revealed how the immune system is kept in check by T-reg cells, stopping it from mistakenly attacking the body's own tissues," commented a prominent physiology expert.

"This work is a striking illustration of how fundamental physiological study can have far-reaching consequences for public health."