Prestigious Award Honors Groundbreaking Immune System Discoveries

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been granted for revolutionary discoveries that clarify how the immune system attacks dangerous infections while sparing the healthy tissues.

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

The work uncovered specialized "sentinels" within the immune system that eliminate malfunctioning immune cells that could attacking the organism.

The discoveries are now enabling new treatments for autoimmune diseases and malignancies.

These winners will divide a monetary award worth 11m SEK.

Decisive Discoveries

"Their research has been essential for understanding how the immune system operates and why we do not all suffer from serious autoimmune diseases," stated the chair of the award panel.

This team's studies address a fundamental question: In what way does the defense system defend us from countless infections while leaving our healthy cells unharmed?

The immune system uses immune cells that search for signs of disease, even pathogens and germs it has not met before.

These defenders employ sensors—called receptors—that are generated randomly in a vast number of combinations.

This gives the immune system the capacity to fight a wide array of threats, but the randomness of the process inevitably produces immune cells that may attack the host.

Security Guards of the Immune System

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

This year's award honors the identification of T-reg cells—described as the immune system's "security guards"—which patrol the body to disarm other immune cells that assault the body's own tissues.

We know that this mechanism malfunctions in autoimmune diseases such as type-1 diabetes, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis.

A Nobel panel added, "The discoveries have established a novel area of investigation and spurred the creation of new therapies, for instance for cancer and immune disorders."

Regarding malignancies, regulatory T-cells block the system from attacking the tumor, so studies are focused on reducing their numbers.

In autoimmune diseases, experiments are exploring increasing regulatory T-cells so the organism is no longer under attack. A similar approach could also be useful in reducing the risks of transplanted organ rejection.

Pioneering Studies

Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, of Osaka University, performed tests on rodents that had their thymus removed, causing self-attack conditions.

The researcher demonstrated that injecting defense cells from healthy mice could stop the illness—implying there was a mechanism for blocking immune cells from harming the host.

Dr. Brunkow, affiliated with the Institute for Systems Biology in a US city, and Dr. Ramsdell, currently at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in a California city, were studying an genetic autoimmune disease in mice and people that resulted in the discovery of a gene critical for the way T-regs operate.

"Their groundbreaking research has uncovered how the immune system is controlled by regulatory T cells, stopping it from mistakenly attacking the healthy cells," commented a prominent biological science specialist.

"The work is a striking illustration of how basic biological research can have far-reaching implications for human health."