Nobel Award Honors Pioneering Body's Defenses Research

This year's prestigious award in medical science was granted for transformative discoveries that clarify how the body's defense network targets dangerous pathogens while sparing the body's own cells.

A trio of renowned researchers—from Japan Prof. Sakaguchi and US experts Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—received this honor.

Their work identified specialized "sentinels" within the defense system that eliminate rogue immune cells capable of harming the body.

The discoveries are now enabling new treatments for immune disorders and malignancies.

The winners will share a monetary award worth 11m Swedish kronor.

Crucial Findings

"Their research has been essential for understanding how the immune system functions and the reason we do not all develop severe self-attack conditions," commented the head of the Nobel Committee.

This team's studies explain a core question: In what way does the immune system defend us from numerous infections while keeping our own tissues unharmed?

Our body's protection system employs immune cells that search for signs of disease, even pathogens and bacteria it has not met before.

Such defenders utilize sensors—known as recognition units—that are generated by chance in countless variations.

This gives the defense network the ability to fight a broad range of threats, but the randomness of the process unavoidably creates immune cells that may attack the body.

Security Guards of the Body

Researchers previously knew that some of these problematic defense cells were eliminated in the thymus—the site where immune cells develop.

This year's Nobel Prize honors the discovery of T-reg cells—known as the immune system's "peacekeepers"—which travel through the body to disarm other immune cells that attack the body's own tissues.

It is known that this process fails in autoimmune diseases such as type-1 diabetes, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis.

The Nobel panel added, "The discoveries have established a new field of research and accelerated the creation of new therapies, for instance for cancer and autoimmune diseases."

Regarding malignancies, T-regs block the body from attacking the tumor, so studies are focused on lowering their numbers.

For autoimmune diseases, trials are exploring increasing regulatory T-cells so the body is no longer under attack. A similar method could also be useful in reducing the chances of transplanted organ failure.

Pioneering Studies

Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, of a Japanese institution, performed tests on rodents that had their thymus extracted, leading to autoimmune disease.

The researcher demonstrated that injecting immune cells from other animals could prevent the disease—suggesting there was a system for blocking defenders from attacking the host.

Mary Brunkow, affiliated with the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, now at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in a California city, were studying an inherited autoimmune disease in rodents and humans that resulted in the identification of a gene critical for the way regulatory T-cells operate.

"Their pioneering work has uncovered how the body's defenses is kept in check by T-reg cells, stopping it from mistakenly attacking the healthy cells," commented a prominent biological science specialist.

"This work is a striking illustration of how fundamental physiological study can have far-reaching implications for public health."