🔗 Share this article

This year's prestigious award in medical science has been granted for revolutionary findings that illuminate how the immune system targets dangerous pathogens while protecting the healthy tissues.

A trio of esteemed researchers—Japan's Prof. Sakaguchi and US experts Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—received this honor.

The research identified specialized "sentinels" within the immune system that eliminate rogue immune cells capable of harming the organism.

The findings are now enabling innovative therapies for immune disorders and cancer.

These laureates will divide a monetary award worth 11 million Swedish kronor.

Decisive Discoveries

"Their research has been decisive for understanding how the body's defenses functions and the reason we don't all suffer from serious self-attack conditions," commented the chair of the award panel.

This team's research address a fundamental question: How does the immune system defend us from numerous infections while keeping our healthy cells intact?

The body's protection system employs immune cells that scan for indicators of disease, including viruses and germs it has never encountered.

These cells employ sensors—called recognition units—that are produced by chance in a vast number of combinations.

That gives the immune system the capacity to combat a broad range of invaders, but the unpredictability of the process unavoidably creates white blood cells that may attack the host.

Security Guards of the Immune System

Scientists earlier understood that some of these harmful white blood cells were destroyed in the thymus—where immune cells develop.

This year's Nobel Prize recognizes the discovery of T-reg cells—known as the body's "security guards"—which patrol the system to neutralize any defenders that attack the healthy cells.

It is known that this process malfunctions in self-attack conditions such as type-1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

A prize committee stated, "The findings have established a new field of research and spurred the creation of new treatments, for example for tumors and autoimmune diseases."

Regarding malignancies, T-regs block the body from attacking the tumor, so research are focused on lowering their numbers.

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

Pioneering Studies

Professor Sakaguchi, from Osaka University, performed tests on rodents that had their thymus removed, causing autoimmune disease.

The researcher showed that introducing defense cells from healthy animals could prevent the disease—implying there was a mechanism for blocking defenders from attacking the host.

Dr. Brunkow, affiliated with the a research center in a US city, and Dr. Ramsdell, currently at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, were investigating an genetic autoimmune disease in rodents and humans that resulted in the identification of a gene vital for how regulatory T-cells function.

"The groundbreaking research has uncovered how the immune system is kept in check by T-reg cells, stopping it from mistakenly attacking the body's own tissues," said a prominent biological science specialist.

"This research is a striking illustration of how basic physiological study can have broad implications for human health."