Nobel Prize Honors Pioneering Body's Defenses Research
This year's prestigious award in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded for transformative findings that clarify how the body's defense network attacks dangerous infections while protecting the body's own cells.
Three esteemed scientists—from Japan Shimon Sakaguchi and American scientists Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—received this honor.
Their work identified specialized "security guards" within the defense system that eliminate rogue defense cells capable of attacking the organism.
The findings are now paving the way for innovative treatments for autoimmune diseases and cancer.
These winners will share a prize fund worth 11m Swedish kronor.
Decisive Discoveries
"The research has been essential for understanding how the body's defenses operates and the reason we do not all suffer from severe self-attack conditions," commented the chair of the Nobel Committee.
The trio's studies explain a fundamental mystery: How does the defense system defend us from numerous infections while keeping our own tissues unharmed?
Our body's protection system employs white blood cells that search for signs of infection, including viruses and germs it has never encountered.
Such defenders utilize sensors—known as receptors—that are produced by chance in a vast number of combinations.
That gives the immune system the ability to fight a wide array of invaders, but the randomness of the process inevitably creates immune cells that can target the body.
Protectors of the Immune System
Researchers earlier knew that some of these problematic white blood cells were eliminated in the thymus—where immune cells mature.
This year's Nobel Prize honors the discovery of T-reg cells—known as the immune system's "peacekeepers"—which travel through the body to disarm any immune cells that assault the body's own tissues.
It is known that this mechanism malfunctions in self-attack conditions such as type-1 diabetes, MS, and RA.
A prize committee added, "These findings have established a new field of investigation and accelerated the creation of new therapies, for instance for cancer and autoimmune diseases."
In malignancies, regulatory T-cells block the system from attacking the growth, so research are focused on lowering their numbers.
In self-attack disorders, trials are testing boosting T-reg cells so the body is no longer under attack. A comparable method could also be useful in reducing the chances of transplanted organ rejection.
Pioneering Studies
Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, from Osaka University, performed tests on mice that had their immune gland removed, leading to autoimmune disease.
The researcher showed that introducing immune cells from other mice could stop the disease—implying there was a system for blocking defenders from attacking the host.
Dr. Brunkow, affiliated with the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were studying an genetic autoimmune disease in rodents and people that led to the discovery of a gene critical for how regulatory T-cells function.
"Their groundbreaking research has revealed how the immune system is controlled by regulatory T cells, stopping it from accidentally targeting the body's own tissues," said a leading physiology specialist.
"The research is a remarkable example of how fundamental biological research can have far-reaching consequences for public health."
