🔗 Share this article

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was granted for revolutionary discoveries that clarify how the body's defense network targets harmful pathogens while sparing the healthy tissues.

Three renowned scientists—from Japan Shimon Sakaguchi and American scientists Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this accolade.

The research uncovered specialized "sentinels" within the immune system that remove malfunctioning defense cells capable of harming the body.

The findings are now enabling new therapies for immune disorders and malignancies.

The laureates will divide a monetary award valued at 11 million Swedish kronor.

Decisive Findings

"Their work has been essential for understanding how the immune system operates and the reason we don't all develop serious self-attack conditions," commented the chair of the Nobel Committee.

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

Our body's protection system employs immune cells that search for signs of infection, even pathogens and bacteria it has never encountered.

These defenders employ detectors—known as receptors—that are generated by chance in countless variations.

That gives the immune system the capacity to fight a broad range of invaders, but the randomness of the mechanism inevitably produces white blood cells that may target the body.

Security Guards of the Immune System

Scientists earlier knew that some of these harmful defense cells were destroyed in the thymus—where immune cells mature.

This year's Nobel Prize honors the discovery of regulatory T-cells—described as the immune system's "peacekeepers"—which travel through the system to neutralize any immune cells that assault the body's own tissues.

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

The prize committee added, "The discoveries have established a new field of investigation and spurred the creation of innovative therapies, for instance for cancer and autoimmune diseases."

Regarding malignancies, regulatory T-cells prevent the system from attacking the tumor, so studies are aimed at reducing their quantity.

For autoimmune diseases, experiments are exploring increasing T-reg cells so the organism is not being harmed. A similar method could also be useful in reducing the chances of organ transplant rejection.

Pioneering Studies

Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, from a Japanese institution, conducted experiments on rodents that had their immune gland extracted, leading to self-attack conditions.

He showed that injecting defense cells from healthy mice could stop the illness—implying there was a mechanism for blocking immune cells from harming the body.

Dr. Brunkow, affiliated with the Institute for Systems Biology in a US city, and Dr. Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in a California city, were investigating an inherited immune disorder in rodents and humans that resulted in the discovery of a genetic factor critical for how T-regs operate.

"Their groundbreaking research has uncovered how the immune system is kept in check by regulatory T cells, preventing it from accidentally targeting the healthy cells," said a leading biological science expert.

"This work is a striking example of how basic physiological study can have far-reaching consequences for human health."