Nobel Prize Recognizes Pioneering Body's Defenses Research

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was granted for transformative findings that clarify how the body's defense network attacks harmful infections while sparing the healthy tissues.

A trio of esteemed scientists—from Japan Shimon Sakaguchi and US scientists Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—share this accolade.

The work identified specialized "sentinels" within the immune system that eliminate malfunctioning immune cells capable of attacking the organism.

The discoveries are now enabling new treatments for immune disorders and cancer.

The laureates will share a prize fund worth 11 million Swedish kronor.

Decisive Discoveries

"The research has been decisive for comprehending how the body's defenses functions and the reason we do not all suffer from serious self-attack conditions," commented the chair of the Nobel Committee.

The trio's studies address a fundamental mystery: How does the defense system defend us from countless invaders while leaving our healthy cells intact?

The body's protection system uses white blood cells that scan for indicators of disease, even viruses and germs it has never encountered.

Such cells utilize sensors—known as recognition units—that are produced randomly in countless combinations.

That provides the immune system the capacity to fight a broad range of threats, but the unpredictability of the mechanism unavoidably produces white blood cells that may target the host.

Protectors of the Body

Scientists previously knew that a portion of these problematic white blood cells were destroyed in the immune organ—where immune cells develop.

This year's award recognizes the identification of regulatory T-cells—known as the body's "peacekeepers"—which travel through the system to disarm any defenders that assault the body's own tissues.

It is known that this mechanism fails in self-attack conditions such as juvenile diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

A prize committee stated, "These discoveries have laid the foundation for a novel area of investigation and accelerated the creation of new treatments, for instance for cancer and autoimmune diseases."

Regarding cancer, T-regs block the body from attacking the tumor, so studies are focused on lowering their numbers.

For self-attack disorders, trials are testing boosting T-reg cells so the body is not under attack. A comparable method could also be effective in reducing the chances of organ transplant rejection.

Innovative Studies

Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, from a Japanese institution, conducted tests on rodents that had their thymus removed, leading to self-attack conditions.

The researcher demonstrated that introducing immune cells from other animals could prevent the disease—suggesting there was a system for preventing defenders from attacking the body.

Mary Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Dr. Ramsdell, now at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in a California city, were studying an genetic autoimmune disease in rodents and humans that resulted in the identification of a gene critical for how regulatory T-cells function.

"Their pioneering research has revealed how the body's defenses is kept in check by regulatory T cells, preventing it from accidentally attacking the healthy cells," said a leading biological science expert.

"This work is a striking example of how basic physiological study can have broad implications for public health."