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This year's prestigious award in medical science has been awarded for transformative findings that illuminate how the body's defense network attacks harmful pathogens while protecting the healthy tissues.

Three esteemed scientists—Japan's Shimon Sakaguchi and American scientists Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this accolade.

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

The findings are now paving the way for new treatments for immune disorders and malignancies.

These laureates will divide a monetary award valued at 11 million Swedish kronor.

Decisive Discoveries

"The research has been decisive for understanding how the body's defenses operates and the reason we do not all suffer from serious self-attack conditions," commented the head of the award panel.

This team's research explain a core mystery: In what way does the defense system defend us from numerous infections while leaving our healthy cells intact?

The immune system uses immune cells that scan for signs of disease, even pathogens and bacteria it has never encountered.

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

That gives the defense network the capacity to combat a broad range of threats, but the unpredictability of the mechanism unavoidably creates immune cells that may target the body.

Protectors of the Body

Researchers earlier understood that some of these problematic white blood cells were destroyed in the immune organ—the site where immune cells develop.

This year's award honors the discovery of regulatory T-cells—known as the body's "peacekeepers"—which travel through the body to disarm other immune cells that attack the body's own tissues.

We know that this process fails in self-attack conditions such as type-1 diabetes, MS, and RA.

The Nobel panel added, "These discoveries have established a novel area of investigation and accelerated the development of innovative therapies, for example for tumors and immune disorders."

In malignancies, T-regs block the body from fighting the growth, so studies are aimed at lowering their numbers.

In self-attack disorders, experiments are testing increasing T-reg cells so the body is not being harmed. A comparable approach could also be useful in minimizing the risks of organ transplant rejection.

Pioneering Experiments

Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, from a Japanese institution, performed experiments on mice that had their immune gland removed, leading to self-attack conditions.

The researcher showed that injecting immune cells from other animals could prevent the disease—suggesting there was a mechanism for blocking immune cells from harming the host.

Dr. Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Dr. Ramsdell, now at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, were studying an genetic immune disorder in mice and people that resulted in the discovery of a genetic factor critical for the way T-regs function.

"The pioneering research has uncovered how the body's defenses is kept in check by regulatory T cells, preventing it from accidentally attacking the healthy cells," commented a prominent biological science expert.

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