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This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been granted for revolutionary findings that clarify how the body's defense network targets harmful infections while protecting the body's own cells.

A trio of esteemed scientists—Japan's Prof. Sakaguchi and American scientists Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this honor.

Their work identified specialized "security guards" within the immune system that eliminate malfunctioning defense cells capable of attacking the organism.

The discoveries are now enabling innovative therapies for autoimmune diseases and malignancies.

These laureates will share a prize fund valued at 11m SEK.

Decisive Discoveries

"Their research has been decisive for comprehending how the immune system functions and the reason we don't all develop serious self-attack conditions," stated the head of the award panel.

This team's research address a core question: In what way does the immune system defend us from countless invaders while keeping our healthy cells unharmed?

The immune system employs white blood cells that scan for signs of disease, even pathogens and germs it has not met before.

These cells utilize detectors—known as receptors—that are generated by chance in countless combinations.

This gives the immune system the ability to fight a wide array of threats, but the randomness of the mechanism unavoidably produces white blood cells that can attack the body.

Protectors of the Immune System

Researchers previously understood that some of these problematic defense cells were eliminated in the immune organ—the site where white blood cells mature.

This year's Nobel Prize honors the discovery of T-reg cells—known as the immune system's "security guards"—which patrol the system to disarm any immune cells that assault the body's own tissues.

We know that this process fails in autoimmune diseases such as juvenile diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and RA.

A Nobel panel stated, "These findings have laid the foundation for a novel area of research and accelerated the creation of innovative therapies, for example for cancer and immune disorders."

In malignancies, regulatory T-cells block the body from attacking the tumor, so research are aimed at lowering their numbers.

In autoimmune diseases, experiments are testing increasing regulatory T-cells so the body is not being harmed. A similar method could also be effective in minimizing the chances of organ transplant rejection.

Pioneering Experiments

Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, of a Japanese institution, performed tests on rodents that had their immune gland removed, leading to autoimmune disease.

The researcher demonstrated that introducing immune cells from other animals could prevent the illness—suggesting there was a mechanism for preventing immune cells from harming the body.

Mary Brunkow, affiliated with the Institute for Systems Biology in a US city, and Fred Ramsdell, now at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, were studying an inherited immune disorder in rodents and people that resulted in the identification of a genetic factor critical for the way T-regs function.

"The groundbreaking work has revealed how the body's defenses is controlled by T-reg cells, preventing it from accidentally targeting the body's own tissues," commented a prominent biological science specialist.

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