🔗 Share this article

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was granted for transformative discoveries that clarify how the body's defense network targets dangerous infections while protecting the healthy tissues.

A trio of esteemed researchers—from Japan Shimon Sakaguchi and US scientists Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this honor.

The work uncovered unique "security guards" within the defense system that remove rogue defense cells capable of harming the body.

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

These laureates will divide a monetary award valued at 11m Swedish kronor.

Crucial Discoveries

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

This team's research explain a fundamental mystery: How does the immune system defend us from numerous invaders while keeping our own tissues intact?

Our immune system employs immune cells that scan for indicators of infection, even pathogens and germs it has not met before.

These cells utilize sensors—known as recognition units—that are generated by chance in a vast number of variations.

This provides the immune system the ability to fight a wide array of invaders, but the unpredictability of the mechanism inevitably creates immune cells that can attack the host.

Security Guards of the Body

Researchers earlier understood that a portion of these harmful white blood cells were destroyed in the thymus—the site where white blood cells mature.

The latest award recognizes the identification of T-reg cells—known as the body's "security guards"—which travel through the body to disarm other defenders that attack the body's own tissues.

We know that this mechanism fails in self-attack conditions such as type-1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

The Nobel panel added, "The discoveries have laid the foundation for a novel area of investigation and accelerated the creation of innovative therapies, for instance for tumors and immune disorders."

In cancer, T-regs 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 no longer under attack. A similar approach could also be effective in minimizing the chances of transplanted organ failure.

Innovative Studies

Prof Sakaguchi, of a Japanese institution, conducted tests on rodents that had their immune gland extracted, leading to autoimmune disease.

He demonstrated that introducing immune cells from other animals could stop the disease—suggesting there was a system for preventing immune cells from attacking the host.

Mary Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Dr. Ramsdell, currently at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were studying an genetic autoimmune disease in mice and people that led to the identification of a gene vital for how T-regs operate.

"The groundbreaking work has revealed how the immune system is kept in check by T-reg cells, stopping it from accidentally attacking the healthy cells," said a prominent physiology specialist.

"This work is a striking illustration of how fundamental physiological research can have far-reaching implications for human health."