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The prestigious award in Physiology or Medicine was granted for transformative findings that illuminate how the body's defense network targets dangerous infections while protecting the healthy tissues.

A trio of renowned scientists—Japan's Shimon Sakaguchi and American scientists Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—received this honor.

Their research identified unique "security guards" within the defense system that remove rogue immune cells that could attacking the organism.

The discoveries are now paving the way for new treatments for immune disorders and cancer.

These winners will share a prize fund worth 11 million SEK.

Decisive Discoveries

"Their work has been decisive for understanding how the body's defenses functions and the reason we don't all suffer from severe autoimmune diseases," commented the head of the Nobel Committee.

The team's research address a fundamental question: How does the immune system defend us from numerous invaders while keeping our own tissues unharmed?

Our immune system uses white blood cells that search for indicators of infection, including pathogens and bacteria it has not met before.

Such cells utilize detectors—known as receptors—that are produced randomly in countless variations.

That provides the defense network the capacity to combat a wide array of invaders, but the unpredictability of the mechanism inevitably creates white blood cells that can target the body.

Protectors of the Body

Scientists previously understood that some of these problematic defense cells were eliminated in the immune organ—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 any immune cells that attack the healthy cells.

We know that this mechanism malfunctions in autoimmune diseases such as type-1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and RA.

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

In malignancies, regulatory T-cells prevent the body from attacking the growth, so studies are focused on reducing their quantity.

For self-attack disorders, trials are exploring boosting T-reg cells so the body is not under attack. A comparable method could also be useful in reducing the risks of organ transplant rejection.

Pioneering Experiments

Professor Sakaguchi, from Osaka University, performed tests on rodents that had their immune gland extracted, leading to self-attack conditions.

He demonstrated that introducing immune cells from healthy mice could prevent the disease—suggesting there was a system for blocking immune cells from attacking the body.

Dr. Brunkow, affiliated with the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were studying an inherited immune disorder in mice and people that resulted in the identification of a genetic factor vital for how regulatory T-cells operate.

"Their groundbreaking work has uncovered how the immune system is controlled by T-reg cells, preventing it from mistakenly targeting the healthy cells," said a prominent physiology expert.

"This work is a striking example of how fundamental physiological research can have broad implications for human health."