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This year's prestigious award in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for revolutionary findings that illuminate how the body's defense network attacks harmful infections while sparing the body's own cells.

Three esteemed scientists—Japan's Shimon Sakaguchi and US scientists Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—share this honor.

The work identified specialized "security guards" within the immune system that remove malfunctioning immune cells capable of harming the body.

These discoveries are now enabling new treatments for autoimmune diseases and cancer.

These laureates will share a monetary award valued at 11m SEK.

Decisive Discoveries

"Their work has been decisive for understanding how the immune system operates and why we don't all develop severe self-attack conditions," commented the head of the award panel.

This trio's research explain a core question: How does the immune system protect us from countless infections while leaving our healthy cells unharmed?

The body's protection system employs white blood cells that scan for signs of infection, even viruses and germs it has never encountered.

These cells employ detectors—known as recognition units—that are produced by chance in a vast number of variations.

This provides the defense network the ability to fight a wide array of threats, but the unpredictability of the mechanism unavoidably creates white blood cells that can target the body.

Security Guards of the Immune System

Scientists earlier knew that some of these problematic white blood cells were eliminated in the immune organ—the site where white blood cells develop.

The latest award honors the discovery of regulatory T-cells—described as the immune system's "security guards"—which travel through the system to disarm other defenders that attack the healthy cells.

It is known that this process malfunctions in self-attack conditions such as type-1 diabetes, MS, and RA.

The Nobel panel added, "The discoveries have established a novel area of research and spurred the creation of new therapies, for example for tumors and immune disorders."

Regarding cancer, T-regs block the body from fighting the tumor, so studies are focused on lowering their quantity.

For self-attack disorders, trials are exploring increasing T-reg cells so the body is not under attack. A comparable approach could also be useful in minimizing the chances of organ transplant rejection.

Pioneering Studies

Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, of Osaka University, conducted experiments on rodents that had their thymus removed, leading to self-attack conditions.

He demonstrated that introducing immune cells from other animals could stop the disease—implying there was a mechanism for blocking immune cells from harming the host.

Dr. Brunkow, affiliated with the a research center in a US city, and Dr. Ramsdell, currently at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in a California city, were investigating an inherited autoimmune disease in mice and humans that led to the discovery of a genetic factor vital for how regulatory T-cells operate.

"Their pioneering work has uncovered how the immune system is controlled by T-reg cells, stopping it from accidentally targeting the healthy cells," commented a prominent biological science expert.

"The work is a remarkable example of how basic biological study can have far-reaching implications for human health."