Prestigious Award Honors Pioneering Immune System Research

This year's Nobel Prize in medical science was awarded for transformative discoveries that illuminate how the body's defense network targets harmful infections while sparing the healthy tissues.

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

The work identified unique "security guards" within the immune system that remove malfunctioning immune cells that could attacking the organism.

The findings are now paving the way for new treatments for autoimmune diseases and malignancies.

The winners will divide a prize fund valued at 11m Swedish kronor.

Decisive Discoveries

"The work has been decisive for understanding how the immune system functions and why we do not all develop serious self-attack conditions," commented the chair of the Nobel Committee.

The trio's studies explain a core mystery: How does the immune system defend us from numerous infections while keeping our healthy cells intact?

The body's protection system uses white blood cells that scan for signs of infection, even pathogens and germs it has never encountered.

Such cells employ detectors—called recognition units—that are generated by chance in a vast number of variations.

This gives the defense network the ability to fight a broad range of threats, but the randomness of the mechanism unavoidably produces immune cells that may target the body.

Protectors of the Body

Researchers earlier knew that a portion of these harmful defense cells were eliminated in the immune organ—the site where immune cells mature.

This year's Nobel Prize recognizes the discovery of regulatory T-cells—described as the body's "security guards"—which patrol the body to disarm other defenders that assault the healthy cells.

We know that this mechanism malfunctions in autoimmune diseases such as type-1 diabetes, MS, and RA.

A prize committee stated, "These discoveries have laid the foundation for a new field of investigation and accelerated the development of innovative treatments, for example for tumors and immune disorders."

In cancer, T-regs block the system from fighting the growth, so research are aimed at lowering their quantity.

In self-attack disorders, trials are testing boosting T-reg cells so the organism is not under attack. A similar approach could also be effective in minimizing the risks of organ transplant failure.

Pioneering Experiments

Prof Sakaguchi, from Osaka University, performed experiments on rodents that had their immune gland extracted, causing self-attack conditions.

The researcher demonstrated that injecting immune cells from healthy animals could prevent the disease—implying there was a mechanism for preventing immune cells from harming the host.

Dr. Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, currently at a biotech firm in a California city, were studying an genetic immune disorder in mice and humans that led to the identification of a gene critical for the way T-regs operate.

"The groundbreaking research has uncovered how the immune system is kept in check by T-reg cells, stopping it from accidentally attacking the body's own tissues," said a leading biological science specialist.

"This research is a remarkable illustration of how fundamental biological research can have far-reaching consequences for human health."