Nobel Prize Honors Pioneering Immune System Research

The prestigious award in medical science was granted for revolutionary findings that clarify how the immune system attacks harmful infections while sparing the healthy tissues.

Three esteemed researchers—Japan's Prof. Sakaguchi and American scientists Dr. Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—received this accolade.

Their research identified unique "sentinels" within the immune system that eliminate rogue immune cells capable of harming the body.

These findings are now enabling new therapies for immune disorders and cancer.

The laureates will divide a prize fund valued at 11m Swedish kronor.

Crucial Discoveries

"The research has been decisive for understanding how the body's defenses operates and why we don't all develop severe autoimmune diseases," stated the chair of the Nobel Committee.

This team's research explain a fundamental mystery: How does the defense system defend us from countless invaders while leaving our healthy cells unharmed?

The immune system employs immune cells that scan for indicators of disease, including pathogens and bacteria it has not met before.

Such defenders employ detectors—known as recognition units—that are produced randomly in a vast number of combinations.

That provides the defense network the ability to fight a broad range of invaders, but the unpredictability of the process inevitably produces white blood cells that may attack the body.

Protectors of the Body

Researchers earlier understood that a portion of these problematic white blood cells were eliminated in the thymus—the site where white blood cells mature.

The latest Nobel Prize recognizes the identification of regulatory T-cells—known as the body's "peacekeepers"—which travel through the system to neutralize any immune cells that attack the body's own tissues.

It is known that this process fails in autoimmune diseases such as type-1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

A prize committee stated, "The findings have laid the foundation for a new field of investigation and spurred the creation of new treatments, for instance for cancer and autoimmune diseases."

Regarding cancer, regulatory T-cells block the body from fighting the tumor, so studies are aimed at reducing their numbers.

In autoimmune diseases, experiments are testing increasing T-reg cells so the body is no longer being harmed. A similar method could also be effective in minimizing the chances of transplanted organ rejection.

Innovative Experiments

Professor Sakaguchi, of Osaka University, conducted experiments on rodents that had their immune gland removed, leading to autoimmune disease.

He showed that introducing defense cells from other mice could prevent the disease—implying there was a system for blocking defenders from harming the host.

Dr. Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, currently at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were studying an genetic immune disorder in mice and humans that resulted in the identification of a gene critical for the way T-regs function.

"The pioneering research has revealed how the immune system is controlled by T-reg cells, stopping it from mistakenly attacking the healthy cells," commented a leading biological science specialist.

"The work is a striking illustration of how basic physiological research can have far-reaching consequences for human health."