🔗 Share this article

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was granted for transformative discoveries that illuminate how the immune system attacks dangerous pathogens while protecting the body's own cells.

A trio of renowned scientists—from Japan Prof. Sakaguchi and American scientists Dr. Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this honor.

Their research identified specialized "security guards" within the immune system that remove rogue defense cells that could attacking the body.

The discoveries are now enabling new therapies for autoimmune diseases and malignancies.

The winners will divide a prize fund valued at 11m Swedish kronor.

Crucial Findings

"The work has been decisive for comprehending how the body's defenses operates and why we don't all develop severe self-attack conditions," commented the chair of the Nobel Committee.

This team's studies address a core question: In what way does the immune system protect us from numerous invaders while keeping our healthy cells intact?

Our immune system employs white blood cells that search for indicators of infection, even pathogens and bacteria it has never encountered.

These cells utilize detectors—known as receptors—that are generated randomly in countless combinations.

That provides the defense network the capacity to combat a broad range of invaders, but the unpredictability of the mechanism unavoidably produces immune cells that can attack the host.

Protectors of the Body

Researchers previously knew that some of these harmful defense cells were eliminated in the immune organ—where immune cells develop.

This year's Nobel Prize honors the identification of T-reg cells—described as the immune system's "security guards"—which travel through the system to neutralize any defenders that assault the body's own tissues.

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

A prize committee stated, "The discoveries have laid the foundation for a new field of investigation and spurred the creation of innovative therapies, for example for cancer and autoimmune diseases."

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

For self-attack disorders, experiments are testing increasing regulatory T-cells so the body is not being harmed. A similar method could also be effective in reducing the risks of organ transplant rejection.

Innovative Studies

Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, from Osaka University, performed experiments on rodents that had their thymus extracted, causing self-attack conditions.

The researcher showed that injecting defense cells from other animals could prevent the disease—implying there was a mechanism for preventing immune cells from attacking the host.

Mary Brunkow, affiliated with the a research center in a US city, and Fred Ramsdell, now at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, were studying an genetic autoimmune disease in rodents and people that led to the discovery of a gene critical for the way T-regs function.

"The groundbreaking research has uncovered how the body's defenses is controlled by regulatory T cells, stopping it from accidentally attacking the healthy cells," said a prominent biological science expert.

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