🔗 Share this article

This year's Nobel Prize in medical science has been awarded for transformative discoveries that clarify how the body's defense network targets harmful infections while protecting the healthy tissues.

A trio of renowned researchers—Japan's Shimon Sakaguchi and US experts Dr. Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this honor.

Their work uncovered specialized "sentinels" within the defense system that eliminate malfunctioning immune cells that could harming the body.

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

These winners will share a monetary award worth 11 million SEK.

Decisive Discoveries

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

The trio's studies address a fundamental mystery: How does the immune system protect us from numerous invaders while leaving our healthy cells intact?

The body's protection system uses white blood cells that search for indicators of disease, even pathogens and germs it has never encountered.

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

That provides the immune system the capacity to fight a broad range of invaders, but the randomness of the mechanism unavoidably produces immune cells that can attack the body.

Protectors of the Body

Researchers previously knew that a portion of these harmful defense cells were eliminated in the thymus—the site where immune cells develop.

This year's award recognizes the discovery of T-reg cells—known as the immune system's "peacekeepers"—which travel through the system to neutralize other immune cells that assault the healthy cells.

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

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

Regarding cancer, regulatory T-cells prevent the body from fighting the tumor, so research are aimed at reducing their numbers.

In self-attack disorders, trials are testing increasing regulatory T-cells so the body is not under attack. A comparable method could also be useful in reducing the risks of transplanted organ rejection.

Innovative Studies

Professor Sakaguchi, of a Japanese institution, performed tests on mice that had their thymus extracted, leading to autoimmune disease.

The researcher showed that introducing defense cells from healthy animals could prevent the illness—implying there was a system for preventing defenders from harming the body.

Mary Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Dr. Ramsdell, currently at a biotech firm in a California city, were studying an inherited immune disorder in mice and people that led to the identification of a gene vital for the way T-regs function.

"Their groundbreaking work has uncovered how the immune system is kept in check by T-reg cells, stopping it from accidentally targeting the healthy cells," said a leading physiology expert.

"The research is a striking example of how basic biological research can have broad consequences for human health."