Prestigious Prize Recognizes Pioneering Body's Defenses Discoveries
This year's Nobel Prize in medical science has been awarded for transformative findings that clarify how the body's defense network attacks dangerous pathogens while sparing the body's own cells.
A trio of esteemed researchers—from Japan Prof. Sakaguchi and US scientists Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this accolade.
The work uncovered specialized "sentinels" within the defense system that remove rogue defense cells that could harming the organism.
The discoveries are now enabling new therapies for immune disorders and cancer.
The laureates will share a monetary award valued at 11m Swedish kronor.
Decisive Discoveries
"The work has been decisive for understanding how the body's defenses functions and the reason we do not all develop severe self-attack conditions," commented the chair of the award panel.
The trio's research explain a fundamental mystery: How does the defense system defend us from numerous invaders while keeping our own tissues intact?
The immune system uses immune cells that search for indicators of disease, even pathogens and germs it has not met before.
These cells employ detectors—known as recognition units—that are produced randomly in countless variations.
That provides the defense network the capacity to combat a broad range of threats, but the randomness of the mechanism inevitably produces white blood cells that can target the host.
Protectors of the Body
Researchers earlier understood that some of these problematic white blood cells were destroyed in the thymus—the site where immune cells mature.
The latest award honors the identification of T-reg cells—known as the body's "peacekeepers"—which patrol the system to neutralize other immune cells that attack the body's own tissues.
We know that this mechanism fails in autoimmune diseases such as type-1 diabetes, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis.
A Nobel panel added, "These discoveries 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.
In autoimmune diseases, trials are testing boosting T-reg cells so the organism is not being harmed. A comparable method could also be effective in reducing the risks of transplanted organ rejection.
Innovative Experiments
Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, of Osaka University, performed experiments on rodents that had their thymus removed, causing self-attack conditions.
He showed that injecting immune cells from healthy mice could prevent the disease—implying there was a system for preventing immune cells from harming the host.
Dr. Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were investigating an inherited immune disorder in mice and people that resulted in the discovery of a genetic factor critical for how T-regs operate.
"Their groundbreaking research has uncovered how the immune system is kept in check by regulatory T cells, stopping it from accidentally targeting the healthy cells," commented a leading physiology specialist.
"This work is a striking example of how fundamental biological study can have broad implications for public health."
