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The prestigious award in Physiology or Medicine has been granted for revolutionary findings that illuminate how the immune system targets dangerous infections while protecting the healthy tissues.

Three renowned scientists—from Japan Shimon Sakaguchi and American scientists Dr. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—received this honor.

The work identified unique "sentinels" within the immune system that remove rogue immune cells that could attacking the body.

These findings are now enabling new therapies for immune disorders and cancer.

These laureates will divide a prize fund worth 11m SEK.

Decisive Discoveries

"The work has been decisive for comprehending how the immune system functions and the reason we do not all suffer from severe autoimmune diseases," commented the chair of the award panel.

This team's research address a core mystery: In what way does the immune system defend us from numerous infections while leaving our healthy cells intact?

Our immune system employs white blood cells that search for signs of infection, even pathogens and bacteria it has never encountered.

These defenders employ sensors—known as receptors—that are produced by chance in a vast number of combinations.

This provides the immune system the capacity to fight a broad range of invaders, but the randomness of the mechanism inevitably creates white blood cells that may target the body.

Security Guards of the Body

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

The latest award recognizes the discovery of regulatory T-cells—described as the body's "peacekeepers"—which travel through the system to disarm any defenders that assault the healthy cells.

We know that this process fails in self-attack conditions such as juvenile diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

A prize committee added, "These discoveries have laid the foundation for a new field of investigation and accelerated the development of innovative treatments, for instance for cancer and immune disorders."

Regarding cancer, regulatory T-cells block the system from attacking the growth, so research are aimed at lowering their quantity.

For self-attack disorders, experiments are exploring increasing T-reg cells so the organism is not being harmed. A comparable method could also be effective in reducing the risks of organ transplant failure.

Innovative Experiments

Professor Sakaguchi, from Osaka University, performed experiments on rodents that had their immune gland extracted, leading to self-attack conditions.

The researcher showed that introducing defense cells from healthy mice could prevent the disease—suggesting there was a mechanism for blocking defenders from attacking the host.

Dr. Brunkow, affiliated with the a research center in a US city, and Fred Ramsdell, now at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, were investigating an inherited autoimmune disease in mice and people that resulted in the discovery of a genetic factor critical for how regulatory T-cells function.

"Their groundbreaking work has revealed how the immune system is controlled by regulatory T cells, preventing it from mistakenly attacking the body's own tissues," commented a prominent physiology expert.

"The research is a striking example of how fundamental biological research can have broad consequences for human health."