Nobel Prize Honors Pioneering Body's Defenses Research
This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been granted for transformative findings that illuminate how the immune system attacks harmful pathogens while protecting the healthy tissues.
Three renowned researchers—Japan's Shimon Sakaguchi and American scientists Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this accolade.
Their research uncovered unique "sentinels" within the immune system that remove rogue defense cells capable of attacking the organism.
The discoveries are now paving the way for new therapies for immune disorders and cancer.
These laureates will divide a prize fund worth 11m Swedish kronor.
Crucial Findings
"Their work has been essential for comprehending how the immune system functions and why we don't all develop severe self-attack conditions," commented the head of the award panel.
The trio's research explain a core question: How does the immune system protect us from countless invaders while keeping our healthy cells unharmed?
The body's protection system uses immune cells that search for signs of infection, even pathogens and germs it has never encountered.
These cells employ sensors—known as receptors—that are generated randomly in a vast number of variations.
That provides the immune system the ability to fight a wide array of threats, but the randomness of the mechanism unavoidably creates immune cells that may attack the body.
Security Guards of the Immune System
Scientists earlier knew that a portion of these problematic defense cells were eliminated in the immune organ—where white blood cells develop.
The latest Nobel Prize honors the identification of T-reg cells—known as the body's "peacekeepers"—which travel through the body to neutralize other immune cells that attack the healthy cells.
We know that this process malfunctions in autoimmune diseases such as type-1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.
The prize committee stated, "The findings have laid the foundation for a new field of research and accelerated the development of new treatments, for instance for cancer and immune disorders."
In malignancies, T-regs block the body from attacking the tumor, so studies are focused on reducing their quantity.
For self-attack disorders, experiments are exploring boosting T-reg cells so the body is not being harmed. A comparable approach could also be useful in reducing the risks of transplanted organ rejection.
Innovative Experiments
Professor Sakaguchi, from Osaka University, conducted experiments on mice that had their thymus extracted, causing self-attack conditions.
The researcher showed that injecting immune cells from healthy animals could prevent the disease—implying there was a system for preventing defenders from harming the host.
Mary Brunkow, from the a research center in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in a California city, were investigating an inherited immune disorder in rodents and humans that led to the identification of a gene critical for how T-regs function.
"Their pioneering research has revealed how the body's defenses is kept in check by regulatory T cells, stopping it from mistakenly attacking the body's own tissues," commented a leading physiology specialist.
"This research is a remarkable illustration of how basic physiological study can have far-reaching consequences for human health."
