Nobel Prize Recognizes Pioneering Body's Defenses Research
This year's prestigious award in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for revolutionary discoveries that illuminate how the body's defense network targets dangerous infections while sparing the body's own cells.
Three esteemed researchers—from Japan Prof. Sakaguchi and US scientists Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this honor.
Their work identified specialized "sentinels" within the defense system that eliminate malfunctioning immune cells that could harming the organism.
These discoveries are now enabling new therapies for immune disorders and malignancies.
The winners will divide a prize fund valued at 11m SEK.
Crucial Discoveries
"The research has been decisive for understanding how the body's defenses operates and why we do not all develop severe self-attack conditions," stated the head of the Nobel Committee.
This team's studies explain a core mystery: How does the defense system protect us from countless invaders while keeping our own tissues unharmed?
Our body's protection system employs white blood cells that search for indicators of disease, including viruses and bacteria it has never encountered.
Such defenders utilize detectors—known as recognition units—that are generated randomly in a vast number of variations.
That provides the immune system the capacity to fight a broad range of threats, but the unpredictability of the mechanism unavoidably produces white blood cells that may attack the host.
Protectors of the Immune System
Researchers previously understood that some of these harmful white blood cells were destroyed in the thymus—where immune cells develop.
The latest Nobel Prize recognizes the identification of T-reg cells—known as the immune system's "security guards"—which patrol the body to neutralize other immune cells that assault the body's own tissues.
It is known that this mechanism fails in self-attack conditions such as juvenile diabetes, MS, and RA.
The Nobel panel added, "These discoveries have established a novel area of research and accelerated the creation of new treatments, for example for cancer and immune disorders."
Regarding cancer, T-regs block the body from fighting the growth, so studies are focused on reducing their numbers.
For self-attack disorders, trials are testing boosting T-reg cells so the body is not under attack. A similar method could also be useful in minimizing the risks of organ transplant rejection.
Pioneering Studies
Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, from Osaka University, performed tests on rodents that had their thymus removed, causing autoimmune disease.
The researcher showed that introducing immune cells from other mice could prevent the illness—implying there was a mechanism for blocking defenders from attacking the body.
Dr. Brunkow, affiliated with the a research center in a US city, and Dr. Ramsdell, currently at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were studying an genetic immune disorder in mice and people that resulted in the identification of a genetic factor critical for the way T-regs operate.
"Their groundbreaking research has uncovered how the immune system is controlled by regulatory T cells, preventing it from accidentally attacking the body's own tissues," said a leading physiology specialist.
"This work is a striking illustration of how basic biological study can have far-reaching implications for public health."
