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This year's prestigious award in Physiology or Medicine was granted for revolutionary discoveries that clarify how the immune system targets dangerous infections while protecting the healthy tissues.

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

Their research identified specialized "sentinels" within the immune system that remove rogue immune cells capable of attacking the organism.

The discoveries are now paving the way for new therapies for immune disorders and malignancies.

These winners will share a monetary award worth 11m SEK.

Crucial Findings

"The research has been essential for comprehending how the immune system functions and the reason we do not all suffer from serious self-attack conditions," stated the chair of the Nobel Committee.

The team's research explain a fundamental mystery: In what way does the defense system protect us from countless infections while leaving our own tissues intact?

Our body's protection system employs white blood cells that search for signs of infection, even pathogens and bacteria it has not met before.

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

This gives the immune system the capacity to combat a broad range of threats, but the unpredictability of the mechanism inevitably produces white blood cells that can target the host.

Protectors of the Body

Scientists previously knew that some of these problematic white blood cells were destroyed in the thymus—the site where white blood cells develop.

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

It is known that this mechanism malfunctions in autoimmune diseases such as type-1 diabetes, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis.

The Nobel panel stated, "These findings have laid the foundation for a novel area of research and accelerated the development of new treatments, for example for cancer and immune disorders."

Regarding cancer, regulatory T-cells prevent the system from attacking the tumor, so studies are focused on reducing their numbers.

For self-attack disorders, trials are testing boosting T-reg cells so the organism is no longer under attack. A similar method could also be useful in minimizing the risks of transplanted organ failure.

Innovative Experiments

Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, of Osaka University, performed experiments on mice that had their thymus removed, causing autoimmune disease.

The researcher showed that introducing defense cells from other mice could prevent the illness—suggesting there was a system for blocking defenders from harming the host.

Mary Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in a US city, and Dr. Ramsdell, now at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, were studying an genetic immune disorder in mice and humans that led to the discovery of a genetic factor critical for how T-regs operate.

"Their groundbreaking research has uncovered how the immune system is controlled by regulatory T cells, preventing it from mistakenly attacking the body's own tissues," said a prominent physiology specialist.

"The research is a remarkable illustration of how basic biological research can have far-reaching consequences for human health."