🔗 Share this article

The Nobel Prize in medical science has been awarded for transformative findings that clarify how the body's defense network attacks dangerous infections while sparing the body's own cells.

A trio of esteemed researchers—Japan's Prof. Sakaguchi and American experts Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this accolade.

Their work uncovered specialized "sentinels" within the defense system that eliminate malfunctioning defense cells that could attacking the organism.

These findings are now paving the way for innovative treatments for immune disorders and malignancies.

These laureates will share a monetary award worth 11m SEK.

Crucial Discoveries

"The research has been essential for understanding how the immune system functions and the reason we don't all suffer from serious self-attack conditions," stated the head of the Nobel Committee.

The trio's studies explain a fundamental question: How does the defense system protect us from numerous invaders while leaving our healthy cells unharmed?

Our body's protection system uses white blood cells that scan for indicators of disease, including viruses and germs it has not met before.

Such defenders employ detectors—called recognition units—that are produced by chance in countless variations.

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

Protectors of the Body

Scientists previously knew that some of these problematic defense cells were destroyed in the thymus—the site where white blood cells develop.

This year's Nobel Prize honors the discovery of regulatory T-cells—described as the body's "peacekeepers"—which travel through the system to disarm other immune cells that attack the healthy cells.

It is known that this process fails in autoimmune diseases such as type-1 diabetes, MS, and RA.

The prize committee stated, "The discoveries have laid the foundation for a novel area of investigation and accelerated the creation of new treatments, for example for cancer and immune disorders."

In cancer, T-regs block the body from attacking the tumor, so studies are aimed at reducing their numbers.

In autoimmune diseases, trials are exploring boosting regulatory T-cells so the body is not being harmed. A similar method could also be useful in reducing the risks of organ transplant rejection.

Innovative Experiments

Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, from a Japanese institution, performed tests on rodents that had their immune gland extracted, leading to autoimmune disease.

The researcher demonstrated that introducing immune cells from other animals could stop the illness—implying there was a system for blocking defenders from harming the host.

Mary Brunkow, affiliated with the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in a California city, were investigating an inherited autoimmune disease in rodents and people that led to the identification of a gene vital for how regulatory T-cells operate.

"The groundbreaking research has uncovered how the body's defenses is kept in check by T-reg cells, preventing it from accidentally attacking the healthy cells," commented a prominent biological science specialist.

"The research is a remarkable illustration of how fundamental physiological study can have broad consequences for public health."