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The Nobel Prize in medical science was awarded for transformative discoveries that illuminate how the immune system attacks harmful infections while protecting the healthy tissues.

A trio of esteemed researchers—from Japan Shimon Sakaguchi and American experts Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—share this honor.

The work uncovered specialized "sentinels" within the immune system that remove malfunctioning defense cells that could harming the organism.

The findings are now enabling new therapies for autoimmune diseases and cancer.

These laureates will divide a prize fund valued at 11 million Swedish kronor.

Crucial Discoveries

"The work has been decisive for comprehending how the immune system operates and why we don't all develop severe autoimmune diseases," stated the chair of the Nobel Committee.

The trio's studies explain a fundamental question: In what way does the defense system protect us from countless invaders while leaving our healthy cells intact?

Our body's protection system uses immune cells that scan for indicators of disease, including pathogens and bacteria it has not met before.

Such defenders employ sensors—known as receptors—that are generated randomly in countless combinations.

This provides the immune system the ability to fight a wide array of invaders, but the unpredictability of the mechanism unavoidably produces white blood cells that may attack the host.

Security Guards of the Immune System

Researchers previously knew that some of these harmful white blood cells were eliminated in the immune organ—where immune cells develop.

The latest Nobel Prize recognizes the discovery of T-reg cells—known as the immune system's "security guards"—which patrol the system to disarm other immune cells that attack the healthy cells.

It is known that this mechanism fails in self-attack conditions such as juvenile diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and RA.

A prize committee stated, "These discoveries have established a new field of investigation and spurred the development of innovative treatments, for example for cancer and immune disorders."

Regarding malignancies, regulatory T-cells prevent the system from fighting the growth, so studies are aimed at reducing their quantity.

For self-attack disorders, experiments are exploring boosting T-reg cells so the organism is not under attack. A comparable method could also be effective in reducing the risks of transplanted organ rejection.

Pioneering Experiments

Prof Sakaguchi, of Osaka University, conducted tests on rodents that had their thymus extracted, leading to autoimmune disease.

The researcher showed that injecting immune cells from healthy mice could prevent the disease—implying there was a system for preventing defenders from attacking the body.

Mary Brunkow, from the a research center in a US city, and Fred Ramsdell, currently at a biotech firm in a California city, were studying an inherited immune disorder in rodents and people that led to the discovery of a genetic factor vital for how T-regs operate.

"The pioneering research has uncovered how the immune system is kept in check by T-reg cells, stopping it from accidentally targeting the body's own tissues," commented a prominent biological science expert.

"This research is a remarkable illustration of how basic physiological research can have broad implications for public health."