Nobel Prize Recognizes Pioneering Body's Defenses Discoveries
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded for revolutionary findings that clarify how the immune system attacks harmful infections while protecting the body's own cells.
A trio of renowned scientists—from Japan Prof. Sakaguchi and US scientists Dr. Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—received this honor.
Their work identified unique "sentinels" within the immune system that remove rogue defense cells that could harming the body.
These discoveries are now enabling new therapies for immune disorders and cancer.
These winners will share a prize fund valued at 11m Swedish kronor.
Decisive Discoveries
"Their work has been essential for understanding how the immune system functions and the reason we don't all suffer from serious self-attack conditions," commented the chair of the Nobel Committee.
The team's research explain a core mystery: How does the defense system protect us from numerous invaders while keeping our healthy cells unharmed?
The body's protection system uses immune cells that scan for signs of disease, including pathogens and germs it has not met before.
Such defenders employ sensors—known as receptors—that are produced randomly in a vast number of combinations.
This provides the defense network the ability to fight a wide array of invaders, but the unpredictability of the mechanism inevitably produces immune cells that can attack the body.
Security Guards of the Body
Scientists previously knew that a portion of these harmful defense cells were destroyed in the thymus—the site where immune cells mature.
This year's award recognizes the identification of T-reg cells—described as the body's "security guards"—which patrol the body to neutralize any defenders that attack the body's own tissues.
We know that this mechanism malfunctions in self-attack conditions such as type-1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.
A Nobel panel stated, "The findings have laid the foundation for a new field of research and spurred the creation of innovative therapies, for instance for cancer and autoimmune diseases."
Regarding malignancies, regulatory T-cells prevent the system from fighting the tumor, so studies are focused on reducing their numbers.
In self-attack disorders, trials are testing increasing T-reg cells so the organism is no longer under attack. A comparable approach could also be useful in reducing the chances of organ transplant failure.
Innovative Studies
Professor Sakaguchi, of a Japanese institution, conducted experiments on mice that had their immune gland extracted, leading to self-attack conditions.
He showed that injecting defense cells from other mice could stop the illness—suggesting there was a system for preventing immune cells from harming the body.
Dr. Brunkow, affiliated with the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Dr. Ramsdell, currently at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were studying an inherited autoimmune disease in rodents and humans that resulted in the identification of a genetic factor vital for the way T-regs operate.
"The groundbreaking work has uncovered how the body's defenses is kept in check by T-reg cells, stopping it from accidentally targeting the body's own tissues," said a prominent biological science expert.
"The work is a remarkable example of how basic biological study can have far-reaching consequences for public health."
