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The prestigious award in medical science has been granted for revolutionary discoveries that illuminate how the immune system targets harmful infections while sparing the healthy tissues.

A trio of esteemed scientists—from Japan Shimon Sakaguchi and US scientists Dr. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—received this accolade.

The work identified unique "security guards" within the immune system that eliminate malfunctioning defense cells that could harming the organism.

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

The winners will share a monetary award valued at 11m SEK.

Decisive Findings

"The work has been decisive for understanding how the body's defenses functions and the reason we do not all suffer from severe self-attack conditions," stated the head of the Nobel Committee.

This trio's research address a core mystery: How does the defense system protect us from countless invaders while keeping our own tissues unharmed?

Our body's protection system employs immune cells that search for signs of disease, including pathogens and bacteria it has never encountered.

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

That gives the defense network the ability to fight a wide array of threats, but the randomness of the mechanism inevitably creates immune cells that may attack the host.

Protectors of the Body

Scientists previously knew that some of these problematic white blood cells were eliminated in the immune organ—where white blood cells mature.

The latest Nobel Prize recognizes the identification of regulatory T-cells—known as the immune system's "peacekeepers"—which patrol the system to disarm other defenders that attack the healthy cells.

We know that this process fails in self-attack conditions such as juvenile diabetes, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis.

A Nobel panel added, "The discoveries have laid the foundation for a novel area of investigation and accelerated the development of new therapies, for instance for tumors and immune disorders."

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

For autoimmune diseases, experiments are exploring increasing regulatory T-cells so the organism is not being harmed. A similar method could also be effective in minimizing the risks of organ transplant rejection.

Innovative Experiments

Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, of a Japanese institution, performed tests on rodents that had their thymus extracted, leading to self-attack conditions.

He showed that injecting immune cells from other animals could prevent the disease—suggesting there was a mechanism for preventing defenders from harming the body.

Dr. Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in a US city, and Dr. Ramsdell, currently at a biotech firm in a California city, were studying an inherited autoimmune disease in rodents and humans that led to the identification of a genetic factor vital for the way regulatory T-cells operate.

"The pioneering work has uncovered how the body's defenses is controlled by T-reg cells, stopping it from mistakenly attacking the body's own tissues," commented a prominent biological science expert.

"This research is a striking example of how fundamental biological research can have broad consequences for public health."