Prestigious Prize Honors Pioneering Immune System Discoveries

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for transformative findings that illuminate how the body's defense network attacks harmful pathogens while sparing the healthy tissues.

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

Their research identified specialized "security guards" within the immune system that eliminate malfunctioning defense cells capable of harming the organism.

These findings are now paving the way for new treatments for immune disorders and cancer.

The laureates will divide a monetary award valued at 11m SEK.

Crucial Discoveries

"Their research has been decisive for understanding how the body's defenses operates and why we do not all suffer from severe self-attack conditions," commented the head of the award panel.

This team's research explain a fundamental question: In what way does the immune system protect us from countless infections while keeping our own tissues unharmed?

The body's protection system uses white blood cells that search for signs of infection, even viruses and bacteria it has never encountered.

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

This provides the immune system the ability to combat a broad range of threats, but the unpredictability of the mechanism unavoidably produces white blood cells that may attack the body.

Security Guards of the Immune System

Researchers previously knew that a portion of these harmful white blood cells were eliminated in the immune organ—where immune cells develop.

The latest Nobel Prize honors the identification of T-reg cells—known as the immune system's "security guards"—which travel through the body to neutralize any defenders that attack the body's own tissues.

We know that this process malfunctions in autoimmune diseases such as juvenile diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

The Nobel panel added, "The findings have established a new field of investigation and spurred the creation of innovative therapies, for example for tumors and immune disorders."

In cancer, regulatory T-cells prevent the body from fighting the growth, so research are focused on reducing their quantity.

In self-attack disorders, experiments are testing boosting T-reg cells so the organism is not under attack. A comparable approach could also be useful in minimizing the chances of organ transplant failure.

Innovative Studies

Professor Sakaguchi, from Osaka University, performed tests on rodents that had their immune gland extracted, leading to self-attack conditions.

The researcher demonstrated that injecting immune cells from healthy animals could prevent the illness—suggesting there was a mechanism for blocking defenders from attacking the host.

Mary Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were studying an genetic autoimmune disease in mice and humans that led to the identification of a gene critical for how T-regs function.

"Their pioneering work has uncovered how the immune system is kept in check by T-reg cells, stopping it from mistakenly attacking the healthy cells," said a leading biological science expert.

"The research is a striking illustration of how fundamental physiological study can have far-reaching implications for public health."