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The prestigious award in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded for revolutionary discoveries that clarify how the body's defense network attacks dangerous infections while protecting the body's own cells.

Three renowned scientists—Japan's Shimon Sakaguchi and US scientists Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this accolade.

The work uncovered specialized "security guards" within the immune system that eliminate malfunctioning immune cells capable of attacking the organism.

These findings are now paving the way for innovative treatments for autoimmune diseases and cancer.

The laureates will share a monetary award worth 11m SEK.

Crucial Findings

"The work has been essential for comprehending how the body's defenses operates and why we do not all develop severe self-attack conditions," stated the head of the award panel.

This trio's research explain a fundamental mystery: How does the defense system defend us from countless infections while keeping our own tissues intact?

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

These cells employ sensors—called receptors—that are generated randomly in countless variations.

This gives the defense network the capacity to combat a broad range of invaders, but the unpredictability of the mechanism unavoidably produces immune cells that can target the host.

Protectors of the Immune System

Scientists earlier understood that a portion of these problematic defense cells were eliminated in the thymus—the site where immune cells mature.

The latest Nobel Prize honors the identification of T-reg cells—known as the immune system's "security guards"—which patrol the system to neutralize other defenders that assault the body's own tissues.

We know that this mechanism fails in self-attack conditions such as juvenile diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and RA.

The prize committee added, "The findings have laid the foundation for a new field of research and accelerated the creation of new treatments, for instance for cancer and autoimmune diseases."

In cancer, T-regs prevent the system from fighting the growth, so research are focused on lowering their quantity.

For self-attack disorders, trials are testing boosting T-reg cells so the organism is not under attack. A comparable approach could also be effective in minimizing the risks of transplanted organ rejection.

Pioneering Studies

Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, of Osaka University, performed experiments on mice that had their thymus removed, leading to self-attack conditions.

The researcher demonstrated that introducing immune cells from other mice could stop the illness—suggesting there was a system for preventing defenders from attacking the body.

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

"The groundbreaking work has revealed how the body's defenses is kept in check by regulatory T cells, preventing it from accidentally attacking the body's own tissues," commented a prominent biological science expert.

"This research is a remarkable example of how basic biological research can have far-reaching consequences for public health."