Prestigious Award Honors Groundbreaking Immune System Research
The prestigious award in medical science was granted for revolutionary discoveries that illuminate how the body's defense network targets harmful infections while protecting the healthy tissues.
Three esteemed researchers—Japan's Shimon Sakaguchi and US experts Dr. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—received this honor.
Their research uncovered specialized "sentinels" within the defense system that eliminate rogue immune cells capable of attacking the body.
These findings are now enabling new treatments for immune disorders and cancer.
The winners will share a prize fund worth 11 million Swedish kronor.
Decisive Findings
"The research has been essential for understanding how the body's defenses functions and why we don't all develop serious autoimmune diseases," stated the chair of the award panel.
The team's studies address a core mystery: How does the immune system defend us from countless invaders while leaving our own tissues unharmed?
The immune system uses immune cells that scan for signs of infection, including pathogens and germs it has not met before.
Such cells utilize detectors—known as recognition units—that are produced by chance in a vast number of variations.
This gives the defense network the capacity to fight a wide array of invaders, but the randomness of the mechanism inevitably creates white blood cells that may attack the host.
Protectors of the Immune System
Scientists earlier knew that a portion of these problematic white blood cells were eliminated in the immune organ—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 body to neutralize other immune cells that assault the healthy cells.
It is known that this mechanism fails in autoimmune diseases such as juvenile diabetes, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis.
The Nobel panel added, "The findings have established a novel area of research and accelerated the creation of innovative treatments, for example for cancer and autoimmune diseases."
Regarding cancer, regulatory T-cells prevent the body from fighting the tumor, so research are aimed at reducing their numbers.
For autoimmune diseases, experiments are exploring boosting regulatory T-cells so the organism is no longer under attack. A comparable method could also be effective in reducing the risks of organ transplant rejection.
Pioneering Experiments
Prof Sakaguchi, from a Japanese institution, conducted experiments on mice that had their thymus removed, leading to autoimmune disease.
He showed that introducing defense cells from healthy animals could prevent the disease—suggesting there was a mechanism for blocking immune cells from harming the body.
Dr. Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in a US city, and Fred Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were studying an inherited immune disorder in rodents and humans that resulted in the identification of a gene critical for the way regulatory T-cells function.
"The groundbreaking work has revealed how the immune system is kept in check by T-reg cells, preventing it from accidentally attacking the healthy cells," said a leading biological science specialist.
"This research is a striking example of how basic physiological study can have broad consequences for public health."
