Nobel Prize Honors Pioneering Body's Defenses Discoveries

The Nobel Prize in medical science has been granted for transformative findings that illuminate how the body's defense network attacks harmful pathogens while sparing the healthy tissues.

Three renowned scientists—Japan's Prof. Sakaguchi and American scientists Dr. Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this accolade.

Their work identified unique "sentinels" within the immune system that eliminate rogue immune cells capable of attacking the organism.

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

The laureates will divide a prize fund worth 11m Swedish kronor.

Decisive Findings

"The work has been decisive for understanding how the body's defenses functions and the reason we do not all develop severe self-attack conditions," stated the chair of the Nobel Committee.

This trio's studies explain a core mystery: How does the immune system protect us from countless infections while keeping our own tissues intact?

Our immune system employs immune cells that search for indicators of infection, including pathogens and germs it has not met before.

These defenders employ detectors—called receptors—that are produced randomly in countless combinations.

This provides the immune system the capacity to fight a broad range of invaders, but the unpredictability of the mechanism inevitably produces immune cells that can attack the host.

Protectors of the Immune System

Scientists earlier understood that some of these problematic defense cells were eliminated in the immune organ—where immune cells mature.

The latest award recognizes the discovery of regulatory T-cells—described as the body's "security guards"—which patrol the body to neutralize other immune cells that attack the body's own tissues.

We know that this mechanism fails in autoimmune diseases such as type-1 diabetes, MS, and RA.

A Nobel panel added, "The findings have laid the foundation for a new field of investigation and spurred the development of innovative treatments, for instance for cancer and immune disorders."

Regarding malignancies, regulatory T-cells prevent the body from fighting the growth, so studies are focused on reducing their quantity.

For self-attack disorders, experiments are exploring boosting T-reg cells so the organism is not under attack. A comparable approach could also be effective in minimizing the risks of transplanted organ failure.

Pioneering Studies

Prof Sakaguchi, from a Japanese institution, performed tests on mice that had their thymus removed, causing autoimmune disease.

The researcher demonstrated that introducing defense cells from healthy animals could prevent the disease—suggesting there was a mechanism for preventing defenders from harming the host.

Mary Brunkow, from the a research center in a US city, and Dr. Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in a California city, were studying an genetic autoimmune disease in rodents and people that resulted in the discovery of a gene vital for how T-regs operate.

"Their groundbreaking work has revealed how the immune system is kept in check by regulatory T cells, stopping it from mistakenly attacking the body's own tissues," commented a prominent physiology expert.

"The work is a remarkable illustration of how fundamental physiological study can have broad implications for public health."