Nobel Prize Honors Groundbreaking Body's Defenses Discoveries
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for revolutionary discoveries that illuminate how the immune system targets dangerous infections while protecting the body's own cells.
Three renowned researchers—from Japan Shimon Sakaguchi and US scientists Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—received this honor.
Their work identified unique "sentinels" within the immune system that remove rogue immune cells that could attacking the body.
These findings are now enabling new therapies for immune disorders and cancer.
The winners will divide a prize fund valued at 11 million SEK.
Decisive Discoveries
"Their work has been essential for understanding how the body's defenses functions and the reason we don't all suffer from serious self-attack conditions," stated the chair of the Nobel Committee.
The team's research explain a core question: How does the defense system protect us from countless infections while keeping our own tissues unharmed?
Our immune system uses immune cells that search for indicators of infection, including pathogens and germs it has never encountered.
These defenders employ sensors—called receptors—that are produced by chance in a vast number of variations.
That provides the immune system the ability to combat a wide array of invaders, but the randomness of the mechanism unavoidably creates immune cells that can target the body.
Protectors of the Body
Scientists earlier understood that some of these problematic defense cells were eliminated in the thymus—the site where white blood cells develop.
The latest Nobel Prize honors the identification of T-reg cells—known as the body's "security guards"—which patrol the system to disarm other immune cells that attack the body's own tissues.
It is known that this process malfunctions in autoimmune diseases such as juvenile diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.
A prize committee added, "The findings have laid the foundation for a novel area of investigation and spurred the development of innovative treatments, for example for tumors and immune disorders."
In malignancies, regulatory T-cells block the system from fighting the tumor, so research are aimed at reducing their quantity.
For self-attack disorders, trials are exploring boosting regulatory T-cells so the organism is no longer being harmed. A similar method could also be effective in reducing the chances of transplanted organ rejection.
Pioneering Studies
Prof Sakaguchi, of Osaka University, conducted tests on mice that had their thymus removed, leading to autoimmune disease.
He showed that injecting immune cells from healthy animals could stop the disease—implying there was a mechanism for blocking defenders from harming the body.
Dr. Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in a US city, and Dr. Ramsdell, currently at a biotech firm in a California city, were studying an inherited autoimmune disease in mice and people that resulted in the discovery of a genetic factor critical for how regulatory T-cells operate.
"The pioneering work has uncovered how the body's defenses is controlled by regulatory T cells, preventing it from accidentally attacking the healthy cells," commented a prominent biological science expert.
"This work is a striking illustration of how fundamental physiological research can have far-reaching implications for human health."