🔗 Share this article

This year's prestigious award in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for transformative findings that clarify how the immune system targets harmful infections while sparing the healthy tissues.

A trio of esteemed scientists—Japan's Shimon Sakaguchi and US scientists Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—received this accolade.

The work uncovered unique "sentinels" within the defense system that eliminate malfunctioning immune cells that could attacking the body.

The findings are now paving the way for innovative therapies for immune disorders and malignancies.

These laureates will share a prize fund worth 11m SEK.

Decisive Findings

"The work has been decisive for comprehending how the body's defenses functions and the reason we don't all develop severe self-attack conditions," stated the head of the Nobel Committee.

The trio's studies address a fundamental question: In what way does the defense system defend us from numerous infections while leaving our own tissues intact?

The immune system uses white blood cells that scan for signs of disease, including viruses and germs it has never encountered.

These defenders utilize detectors—called recognition units—that are generated randomly in countless variations.

This provides the defense network the capacity to fight a broad range of threats, but the randomness of the mechanism unavoidably produces immune cells that can target the body.

Protectors of the Body

Scientists previously knew that a portion of these harmful white blood cells were destroyed in the thymus—where white blood cells develop.

The latest award honors the identification of T-reg cells—described as the body's "security guards"—which travel through the system to neutralize any immune cells that assault the healthy cells.

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

A prize committee added, "The findings have established a novel area of research and accelerated the creation of new treatments, for example for tumors and autoimmune diseases."

Regarding cancer, T-regs prevent the system from fighting the growth, so research are focused on lowering their numbers.

In autoimmune diseases, experiments are testing boosting T-reg cells so the organism is not being harmed. A comparable method could also be useful in minimizing the risks of transplanted organ rejection.

Pioneering Experiments

Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, from a Japanese institution, conducted experiments on rodents that had their thymus extracted, leading to autoimmune disease.

He showed that introducing immune cells from healthy animals could stop the illness—suggesting there was a system for preventing immune cells from harming the host.

Mary Brunkow, affiliated with the a research center in a US city, and Fred Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were studying an inherited immune disorder in rodents and people that led to the discovery of a gene vital for the way regulatory T-cells operate.

"Their groundbreaking research has revealed how the body's defenses is kept in check by regulatory T cells, stopping it from accidentally attacking the healthy cells," said a prominent physiology expert.

"The research is a remarkable example of how basic biological study can have far-reaching consequences for public health."