Prestigious Prize Honors Groundbreaking Body's Defenses Research
This year's prestigious award in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded for revolutionary discoveries that clarify how the immune system attacks harmful pathogens while sparing the body's own cells.
A trio of esteemed researchers—from Japan Shimon Sakaguchi and US scientists Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—share this accolade.
Their research identified unique "security guards" within the immune system that remove malfunctioning immune cells that could attacking the organism.
The discoveries are now paving the way for new therapies for autoimmune diseases and malignancies.
These winners will divide a monetary award valued at 11 million SEK.
Crucial Discoveries
"Their work has been decisive for understanding how the immune system functions and the reason we don't all develop severe self-attack conditions," stated the chair of the award panel.
The trio's research address a core mystery: In what way does the immune system protect us from countless infections while leaving our healthy cells intact?
The immune system uses immune cells that search for indicators of infection, even viruses and bacteria it has never encountered.
Such cells employ detectors—known as recognition units—that are generated randomly in a vast number of variations.
This provides the defense network the capacity to fight a wide array of invaders, but the randomness of the mechanism inevitably produces white blood cells that can target the host.
Protectors of the Body
Researchers previously understood that a portion of these harmful defense cells were destroyed in the immune organ—where immune cells develop.
This year's Nobel Prize recognizes the identification of regulatory T-cells—known as the immune system's "peacekeepers"—which patrol the body to disarm other immune cells that attack the healthy cells.
It is known that this process malfunctions in self-attack conditions such as juvenile diabetes, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis.
A Nobel panel stated, "These findings have laid the foundation for a new field of research and accelerated the creation of new therapies, for example for cancer and autoimmune diseases."
In cancer, T-regs prevent the body from attacking the growth, so research are focused on reducing their quantity.
For self-attack disorders, experiments are testing boosting T-reg cells so the organism is no longer being harmed. A comparable method could also be useful in reducing the risks of transplanted organ rejection.
Innovative Experiments
Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, from a Japanese institution, performed experiments on rodents that had their immune gland extracted, causing autoimmune disease.
The researcher showed that injecting immune cells from other mice could prevent the disease—implying there was a mechanism for blocking immune cells from harming the body.
Mary Brunkow, affiliated with the a research center in a US city, and Fred Ramsdell, currently at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were investigating an inherited immune disorder in rodents and humans that led to the identification of a genetic factor vital for how T-regs operate.
"Their pioneering research has uncovered how the body's defenses is kept in check by T-reg cells, stopping it from mistakenly targeting the body's own tissues," said a leading physiology expert.
"The work is a striking illustration of how fundamental biological study can have far-reaching consequences for public health."
