🔗 Share this article

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was granted for revolutionary findings that clarify how the body's defense network attacks dangerous pathogens while sparing the healthy tissues.

Three esteemed researchers—from Japan Shimon Sakaguchi and US scientists Dr. Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this accolade.

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

These findings are now enabling new therapies for immune disorders and cancer.

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

Crucial Findings

"Their work has been essential for understanding how the body's defenses functions and why we do not all develop severe autoimmune diseases," stated the chair of the award panel.

The team's research explain a core mystery: In what way does the defense system defend us from countless invaders while leaving our own tissues unharmed?

The body's protection system uses immune cells that search for signs of disease, including pathogens and germs it has never encountered.

Such cells utilize detectors—called recognition units—that are produced randomly in a vast number of combinations.

That provides the defense network the ability to combat a broad range of threats, but the randomness of the mechanism inevitably creates white blood cells that can attack the host.

Security Guards of the Immune System

Researchers previously understood that a portion of these problematic defense cells were eliminated in the thymus—the site where white blood cells develop.

This year's award recognizes the identification of regulatory T-cells—described as the immune system's "peacekeepers"—which travel through the body to neutralize any immune cells that attack the healthy cells.

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

The prize committee stated, "The discoveries have laid the foundation for a new field of investigation and accelerated the development of new therapies, for example for tumors and autoimmune diseases."

In malignancies, regulatory T-cells prevent the body from fighting the tumor, so research are aimed at lowering their quantity.

For autoimmune diseases, trials are exploring boosting regulatory T-cells so the body is not under attack. A similar approach could also be useful in reducing the risks of organ transplant failure.

Innovative Studies

Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, from a Japanese institution, performed tests on mice that had their immune gland extracted, causing self-attack conditions.

The researcher showed that injecting defense cells from healthy mice could prevent the illness—suggesting there was a mechanism for blocking defenders from harming the host.

Mary Brunkow, from the a research center in a US city, and Fred Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were studying an genetic immune disorder in rodents and people that led to the discovery of a genetic factor critical for the way T-regs function.

"The groundbreaking research has uncovered how the immune system is controlled by T-reg cells, preventing it from accidentally attacking the body's own tissues," commented a leading biological science specialist.

"This work is a remarkable example of how basic biological study can have far-reaching consequences for public health."