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This year's prestigious award in Physiology or Medicine has been granted for transformative findings that illuminate how the body's defense network attacks harmful pathogens while protecting the healthy tissues.

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

The research identified unique "security guards" within the defense system that remove rogue immune cells capable of harming the organism.

These findings are now paving the way for new treatments for autoimmune diseases and cancer.

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

Decisive Findings

"The research has been essential for understanding how the body's defenses functions and the reason we don't all develop severe self-attack conditions," stated the head of the Nobel Committee.

This team's studies address a fundamental mystery: How does the defense system protect us from numerous invaders while leaving our own tissues unharmed?

Our body's protection system uses immune cells that search for indicators of infection, including viruses and germs it has not met before.

These defenders utilize sensors—called recognition units—that are produced randomly in a vast number of variations.

This gives the defense network the ability to fight a wide array of invaders, but the unpredictability of the process inevitably creates white blood cells that can target the body.

Security Guards of the Body

Researchers previously knew that some of these harmful defense cells were destroyed in the immune organ—where white blood cells mature.

The latest award recognizes the identification of regulatory T-cells—known as the body's "security guards"—which patrol the body to neutralize other defenders that assault the healthy cells.

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

A prize committee added, "These discoveries have laid the foundation for a novel area of investigation and accelerated the development of innovative therapies, for instance for tumors and autoimmune diseases."

In malignancies, regulatory T-cells prevent the body from attacking the tumor, so studies are aimed at reducing their quantity.

For autoimmune diseases, experiments are testing boosting T-reg cells so the organism is not being harmed. A comparable approach could also be effective in minimizing the chances of organ transplant rejection.

Pioneering Studies

Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, of a Japanese institution, conducted experiments on rodents that had their immune gland removed, leading to self-attack conditions.

He showed that introducing defense cells from healthy animals could prevent the disease—suggesting there was a mechanism for preventing defenders from attacking the host.

Dr. Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Dr. Ramsdell, now at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in a California city, were investigating an genetic immune disorder in rodents and people that led to the discovery of a gene vital for how regulatory T-cells operate.

"Their pioneering work has uncovered how the immune system is kept in check by T-reg cells, preventing it from accidentally attacking the body's own tissues," said a prominent physiology expert.

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