Nobel Award Honors Groundbreaking Body's Defenses Research

The prestigious award in medical science has been awarded for revolutionary discoveries that illuminate how the immune system targets harmful infections while protecting the healthy tissues.

Three esteemed scientists—Japan's Prof. Sakaguchi and American experts Dr. Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this honor.

Their research identified unique "security guards" within the defense system that eliminate malfunctioning defense cells capable of attacking the body.

The findings are now enabling innovative treatments for immune disorders and malignancies.

The laureates will divide a monetary award worth 11m SEK.

Decisive Findings

"Their work has been essential for comprehending how the body's defenses functions and why we don't all develop severe autoimmune diseases," stated the head of the Nobel Committee.

This trio's research explain a fundamental question: In what way does the defense system defend us from numerous infections while leaving our healthy cells intact?

Our body's protection system uses white blood cells that scan for indicators of disease, even viruses and bacteria it has never encountered.

Such defenders employ detectors—known as recognition units—that are generated by chance in a vast number of combinations.

That gives the defense network the capacity to combat a broad range of threats, but the unpredictability of the mechanism unavoidably produces white blood cells that can target the body.

Protectors of the Body

Researchers earlier understood that some of these harmful white blood cells were destroyed in the thymus—where white blood cells mature.

The latest award honors the discovery of regulatory T-cells—described as the immune system's "peacekeepers"—which travel through the body to neutralize any immune cells that attack the body's own tissues.

We know that this process fails in self-attack conditions such as juvenile diabetes, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis.

The prize committee stated, "The findings have laid the foundation for a novel area of research and spurred the development of new treatments, for instance for cancer and autoimmune diseases."

In malignancies, T-regs block the system from attacking the tumor, so studies are focused on reducing their numbers.

In self-attack disorders, trials are testing boosting regulatory T-cells so the body is no longer under attack. A similar approach could also be useful in minimizing the chances of transplanted organ failure.

Pioneering Experiments

Professor Sakaguchi, from Osaka University, conducted experiments on mice that had their thymus removed, causing self-attack conditions.

He demonstrated that introducing defense cells from other mice could prevent the illness—implying there was a mechanism for blocking immune cells from attacking the host.

Mary Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were studying an inherited immune disorder in rodents and people that resulted in the discovery of a genetic factor critical for how T-regs operate.

"Their pioneering research has uncovered how the immune system is kept in check by regulatory T cells, stopping it from accidentally targeting the healthy cells," commented a prominent physiology expert.

"The research is a remarkable example of how basic physiological research can have far-reaching implications for human health."