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

Three renowned scientists—from Japan Shimon Sakaguchi and American experts Dr. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—share this honor.

Their work identified unique "sentinels" within the defense system that remove rogue defense cells that could attacking the organism.

The findings are now enabling innovative therapies for immune disorders and cancer.

The laureates will divide a prize fund worth 11m Swedish kronor.

Crucial Findings

"Their research has been decisive for understanding how the body's defenses functions and why we do not all suffer from severe autoimmune diseases," commented the chair of the award panel.

The team's studies explain a fundamental mystery: In what way does the immune system protect us from countless invaders while keeping our own tissues unharmed?

Our immune system uses white blood cells that search for indicators of disease, even pathogens and germs it has not met before.

These defenders employ detectors—called receptors—that are generated by chance in a vast number of combinations.

This provides the immune system the ability to combat a wide array of invaders, but the unpredictability of the mechanism unavoidably creates immune cells that may attack the body.

Protectors of the Body

Scientists earlier understood that some of these harmful defense cells were eliminated in the thymus—where white blood cells develop.

The latest award honors the identification of T-reg cells—known as the body's "security guards"—which patrol the body to neutralize other defenders that attack the body's own tissues.

We know that this process malfunctions in self-attack conditions such as type-1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

A prize committee stated, "The discoveries have established a new field of research and accelerated the development of innovative treatments, for instance for tumors and immune disorders."

In malignancies, T-regs prevent the body from attacking the growth, so studies are focused on lowering their quantity.

In self-attack disorders, experiments are exploring boosting T-reg cells so the body is no longer being harmed. A similar method could also be useful in minimizing the chances of organ transplant rejection.

Pioneering Studies

Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, of Osaka University, conducted experiments on rodents that had their immune gland extracted, leading to autoimmune disease.

He demonstrated that injecting immune cells from other animals could stop the illness—suggesting there was a mechanism for preventing immune cells from harming the host.

Dr. Brunkow, affiliated with the a research center in a US city, and Dr. Ramsdell, currently at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were studying an inherited immune disorder in rodents and humans that led to the identification of a genetic factor critical for the way T-regs operate.

"Their groundbreaking work has revealed how the body's defenses is kept in check by regulatory T cells, stopping it from accidentally attacking the healthy cells," commented a leading biological science expert.

"The work is a remarkable example of how fundamental physiological study can have broad consequences for public health."