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This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been granted for transformative findings that illuminate how the immune system targets dangerous pathogens while sparing the healthy tissues.

Three esteemed researchers—Japan's Prof. Sakaguchi and US scientists Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this honor.

Their research uncovered specialized "sentinels" within the immune system that eliminate rogue defense cells capable of harming the body.

These findings are now enabling new treatments for immune disorders and malignancies.

These laureates will divide a monetary award valued at 11 million SEK.

Crucial Findings

"Their work has been essential for understanding how the immune system operates and why we do not all suffer from serious self-attack conditions," stated the head of the Nobel Committee.

This trio's research address a fundamental question: In what way does the immune system defend us from countless infections while keeping our own tissues unharmed?

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

Such cells utilize detectors—known as recognition units—that are generated by chance in a vast number of combinations.

This provides the immune system the capacity to fight a broad range of invaders, but the unpredictability of the process inevitably creates immune cells that can attack the host.

Security Guards of the Body

Scientists earlier understood that some of these problematic defense cells were destroyed in the thymus—where immune cells mature.

The latest award honors the discovery of T-reg cells—known as the immune system's "security guards"—which travel through the system to disarm other defenders that attack the healthy cells.

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

A Nobel panel stated, "The findings have established a new field of investigation and spurred the development of new therapies, for example for cancer and autoimmune diseases."

In malignancies, regulatory T-cells prevent the system from fighting the tumor, so studies are aimed at lowering their numbers.

In autoimmune diseases, experiments are testing boosting regulatory T-cells so the organism is not under attack. A similar method could also be useful in minimizing the risks of transplanted organ failure.

Pioneering Studies

Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, of Osaka University, performed tests on rodents that had their thymus extracted, causing self-attack conditions.

He demonstrated that injecting immune cells from other mice could stop the illness—suggesting there was a mechanism for preventing immune cells from harming the host.

Dr. Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, currently at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, were studying an genetic immune disorder in rodents and humans that resulted in the discovery of a genetic factor vital for the way T-regs function.

"Their pioneering work has revealed how the immune system is controlled by T-reg cells, stopping it from accidentally attacking the healthy cells," said a leading physiology expert.

"This research is a striking example of how basic physiological research can have broad consequences for human health."