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The prestigious award in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded for revolutionary discoveries that illuminate how the immune system attacks dangerous infections while sparing the healthy tissues.

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

The work identified unique "security guards" within the immune system that remove malfunctioning defense cells that could attacking the organism.

These findings are now paving the way for innovative therapies for immune disorders and cancer.

These winners will share a prize fund valued at 11m Swedish kronor.

Decisive Discoveries

"Their work has been decisive for understanding how the body's defenses operates and why we don't all develop serious self-attack conditions," stated the head of the award panel.

This team's research address a fundamental question: In what way does the defense system defend us from numerous invaders while leaving our healthy cells intact?

Our immune system employs immune cells that search for indicators of disease, even viruses and bacteria it has never encountered.

These defenders employ sensors—called receptors—that are generated randomly in a vast number of variations.

This gives the defense network the capacity to fight a broad range of threats, but the randomness of the mechanism inevitably produces white blood cells that can target the body.

Security Guards of the Immune System

Scientists previously understood that some of these harmful white blood cells were destroyed in the thymus—the site where white blood cells mature.

This year's Nobel Prize recognizes the identification of regulatory T-cells—described as the immune system's "peacekeepers"—which patrol the system to neutralize any immune cells that attack the healthy cells.

We know that this mechanism fails in self-attack conditions such as type-1 diabetes, MS, and RA.

The prize committee added, "These findings have laid the foundation for a new field of research and accelerated the creation of new treatments, for instance for tumors and immune disorders."

In cancer, regulatory T-cells block the system from fighting the growth, so studies are aimed at reducing their quantity.

In self-attack disorders, experiments are testing boosting regulatory T-cells so the organism is no longer under attack. A comparable approach could also be useful in reducing the risks of transplanted organ rejection.

Innovative Studies

Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, from Osaka University, performed experiments on rodents that had their thymus extracted, leading to self-attack conditions.

The researcher demonstrated that injecting defense cells from healthy animals could prevent the illness—suggesting there was a mechanism for blocking defenders from harming the host.

Dr. Brunkow, from the a research center in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, currently at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in a California city, were studying an genetic immune disorder in rodents and people that led to the identification of a genetic factor critical for the way T-regs function.

"Their groundbreaking work has revealed how the body's defenses is controlled by regulatory T cells, preventing it from accidentally targeting the body's own tissues," commented a leading physiology specialist.

"The research is a remarkable illustration of how fundamental physiological research can have broad implications for human health."