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The Nobel Prize in medical science was awarded for transformative findings that clarify how the immune system targets harmful infections while protecting the body's own cells.

A trio of esteemed scientists—Japan's Shimon Sakaguchi and American experts Dr. Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this accolade.

Their work identified unique "sentinels" within the immune system that remove malfunctioning immune cells that could harming the body.

The discoveries are now enabling new therapies for autoimmune diseases and cancer.

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

Decisive Findings

"The research has been essential for understanding how the body's defenses operates and why we don't all develop serious autoimmune diseases," commented the head of the Nobel Committee.

The team's studies explain a fundamental mystery: In what way does the immune system defend us from numerous invaders while keeping our own tissues intact?

The body's protection system uses immune cells that scan for indicators of infection, even viruses and bacteria it has never encountered.

Such defenders employ detectors—called recognition units—that are generated randomly in a vast number of variations.

That provides the immune system the capacity to combat a wide array of invaders, but the randomness of the process inevitably creates white blood cells that can attack the body.

Protectors of the Immune System

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

The latest award recognizes the discovery of regulatory T-cells—described as the body's "security guards"—which travel through the system to disarm any defenders that assault the healthy cells.

We know that this process malfunctions in self-attack conditions such as juvenile diabetes, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis.

A prize committee stated, "The findings have established a new field of investigation and accelerated the creation of new therapies, for instance for cancer and immune disorders."

Regarding malignancies, T-regs block the system from attacking the growth, so studies are aimed at lowering their quantity.

In self-attack disorders, experiments are testing increasing regulatory T-cells so the body is no longer being harmed. A similar method could also be useful in minimizing the risks of transplanted organ failure.

Pioneering Experiments

Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, of Osaka University, performed tests on rodents that had their immune gland removed, causing self-attack conditions.

He showed that introducing defense cells from other animals could stop the illness—implying there was a system for blocking 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 studying an inherited autoimmune disease in mice and humans that resulted in the discovery of a gene critical for how T-regs function.

"Their pioneering research has uncovered how the immune system is kept in check by T-reg cells, stopping it from mistakenly targeting the healthy cells," commented a prominent physiology specialist.

"This research is a striking example of how basic physiological study can have far-reaching consequences for public health."