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This year's Nobel Prize in medical science was awarded for transformative findings that clarify how the body's defense network attacks dangerous pathogens while protecting the healthy tissues.

A trio of renowned researchers—from Japan Shimon Sakaguchi and US scientists Dr. Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—received this honor.

The work identified specialized "security guards" within the defense system that remove rogue defense cells that could attacking the organism.

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

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

Decisive Findings

"Their work has been decisive for understanding how the body's defenses functions and why we do not all develop severe self-attack conditions," commented the chair of the Nobel Committee.

The team's research explain a fundamental question: How does the defense system defend us from numerous infections while keeping our own tissues unharmed?

Our body's protection system uses white blood cells that scan for indicators of disease, including pathogens and germs it has never encountered.

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

That gives the defense network the capacity to combat a wide array of threats, but the unpredictability of the process unavoidably creates immune cells that can target the host.

Security Guards of the Body

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

This year's Nobel Prize honors the discovery of regulatory T-cells—described as the immune system's "peacekeepers"—which patrol the body to neutralize other defenders that assault the body's own tissues.

We know that this process malfunctions in autoimmune diseases such as juvenile diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and RA.

A prize committee added, "The findings have established a novel area of investigation and accelerated the creation of new therapies, for example for tumors and autoimmune diseases."

Regarding malignancies, regulatory T-cells block the system from fighting the tumor, so studies are aimed at lowering their numbers.

For self-attack disorders, trials are exploring boosting T-reg cells so the organism is no longer being harmed. A similar approach could also be effective in reducing the chances of organ transplant failure.

Innovative Studies

Professor Sakaguchi, of a Japanese institution, performed tests on mice that had their thymus removed, causing autoimmune disease.

He showed that introducing defense cells from healthy animals could stop the disease—implying there was a system for blocking immune cells from attacking the body.

Dr. Brunkow, affiliated with the a research center in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were studying an inherited autoimmune disease in rodents and people that resulted in the discovery of a genetic factor critical for the way T-regs operate.

"Their groundbreaking work has uncovered how the immune system is controlled by regulatory T cells, preventing it from accidentally attacking the healthy cells," said a leading physiology specialist.

"This work is a striking example of how fundamental physiological study can have far-reaching implications for human health."