🔗 Share this article

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded for transformative discoveries that clarify how the body's defense network targets dangerous infections while sparing the healthy tissues.

Three renowned researchers—Japan's Shimon Sakaguchi and US scientists Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—received this accolade.

Their research identified unique "sentinels" within the defense system that remove malfunctioning defense cells capable of harming the body.

These discoveries are now paving the way for innovative therapies for autoimmune diseases and cancer.

The laureates will divide a monetary award worth 11m Swedish kronor.

Decisive Findings

"Their research has been essential for comprehending how the body's defenses operates and why we do not all develop severe self-attack conditions," commented the head of the Nobel Committee.

This team's studies explain a fundamental mystery: In what way does the immune system protect us from numerous invaders while leaving our own tissues unharmed?

The body's protection system uses immune cells that search for signs of infection, including pathogens and bacteria it has not met before.

These defenders utilize detectors—known as receptors—that are generated by chance in countless variations.

That provides the defense network the capacity to fight a wide array of threats, but the unpredictability of the process inevitably produces white blood cells that may attack the body.

Security Guards of the Body

Scientists previously knew that some of these harmful white blood cells were eliminated in the immune organ—the site where white blood cells develop.

This year's award recognizes the identification of regulatory T-cells—known as the immune system's "security guards"—which travel through the body to disarm other defenders that assault the body's own tissues.

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

A Nobel panel stated, "These findings have established a novel area of investigation and accelerated the creation of innovative therapies, for instance for cancer and immune disorders."

Regarding malignancies, T-regs prevent the body from attacking the growth, so studies are focused on lowering their numbers.

For autoimmune diseases, experiments are testing increasing regulatory T-cells so the body is no longer being harmed. A comparable approach could also be useful in minimizing the chances of transplanted organ rejection.

Innovative Experiments

Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, of Osaka University, conducted experiments on mice that had their immune gland removed, causing self-attack conditions.

He showed that introducing defense cells from healthy mice could stop the illness—implying there was a system for preventing immune cells from harming the host.

Mary Brunkow, from the a research center in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, now at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, were studying an genetic immune disorder in mice and humans that resulted in the identification of a gene critical for how T-regs function.

"Their pioneering work has revealed how the immune system is controlled by regulatory T cells, stopping it from mistakenly attacking the body's own tissues," said a leading physiology specialist.

"The research is a striking example of how basic physiological study can have broad implications for public health."