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

A trio of renowned researchers—Japan's Shimon Sakaguchi and American experts Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—share this honor.

Their work uncovered unique "sentinels" within the immune system that remove malfunctioning defense cells that could attacking the body.

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

The winners will divide a monetary award valued at 11 million SEK.

Decisive Discoveries

"Their research has been decisive for comprehending how the immune system operates and the reason we do not all suffer from serious self-attack conditions," stated the chair of the award panel.

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

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

These defenders employ detectors—called receptors—that are generated by chance in countless variations.

That provides the immune system the ability to combat a broad range of threats, but the unpredictability of the process unavoidably produces white blood cells that may target the host.

Security Guards of the Immune System

Scientists previously knew that a portion of these harmful defense cells were eliminated in the thymus—where white blood cells develop.

The latest Nobel Prize honors the discovery of regulatory T-cells—known as the immune system's "security guards"—which travel through the body to disarm other immune cells that attack the body's own tissues.

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

The prize committee added, "These discoveries have established a novel area of research and spurred the creation of new treatments, for instance for cancer and autoimmune diseases."

In malignancies, regulatory T-cells block the system from fighting the tumor, so research are focused on lowering their numbers.

In autoimmune diseases, trials are testing boosting T-reg cells so the organism is no longer under attack. A comparable approach could also be effective in minimizing the risks of transplanted organ rejection.

Innovative Studies

Prof Sakaguchi, of a Japanese institution, performed experiments on mice that had their immune gland extracted, leading to autoimmune disease.

He showed that injecting immune cells from other mice could prevent the disease—suggesting there was a mechanism for blocking immune cells from attacking the body.

Dr. Brunkow, affiliated with the Institute for Systems Biology in a US city, and Fred Ramsdell, now at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in a California city, were investigating an genetic immune disorder in rodents and people that led to the identification of a genetic factor critical for how T-regs function.

"Their groundbreaking work has uncovered how the body's defenses is controlled by T-reg cells, stopping it from accidentally attacking the healthy cells," commented a prominent biological science expert.

"The research is a striking illustration of how fundamental biological research can have broad consequences for public health."