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This year's Nobel Prize in medical science was granted for revolutionary discoveries that clarify how the body's defense network targets harmful infections while protecting the healthy tissues.

A trio of renowned researchers—from Japan Prof. Sakaguchi and American experts Dr. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—share this honor.

Their work uncovered unique "security guards" within the defense system that eliminate malfunctioning defense cells that could attacking the organism.

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

These winners will share a prize fund valued at 11m Swedish kronor.

Decisive Discoveries

"The work has been decisive for understanding how the immune system operates and why we do not all suffer from severe self-attack conditions," commented the chair of the award panel.

The team's studies explain a fundamental mystery: How does the immune system defend us from numerous infections while keeping our healthy cells intact?

The immune system employs immune cells that scan for signs of infection, even pathogens and germs it has not met before.

Such defenders utilize sensors—called recognition units—that are generated randomly in a vast number of combinations.

This provides the defense network the capacity to combat a wide array of invaders, but the randomness of the mechanism inevitably produces immune cells that may attack the body.

Protectors of the Body

Scientists earlier understood that some of these problematic defense cells were destroyed in the thymus—the site where white blood cells mature.

This year's Nobel Prize recognizes the identification of T-reg cells—known as the body's "security guards"—which travel through the system to disarm other defenders that attack the body's own tissues.

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

A Nobel panel added, "These discoveries have laid the foundation for a new field of investigation and spurred the creation of new treatments, for instance for cancer and autoimmune diseases."

Regarding cancer, regulatory T-cells block the system from attacking the growth, so studies are aimed at reducing their numbers.

For self-attack disorders, trials are testing increasing T-reg cells so the body is not under attack. A comparable approach could also be effective in reducing the chances of transplanted organ failure.

Innovative Experiments

Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, from a Japanese institution, conducted tests on mice that had their immune gland removed, causing self-attack conditions.

The researcher showed that introducing defense cells from other mice could stop the disease—suggesting there was a system for preventing immune cells from harming the body.

Mary Brunkow, affiliated with the Institute for Systems Biology in a US city, and Fred Ramsdell, now at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in a California city, were investigating an genetic immune disorder in mice and humans that resulted in the discovery of a genetic factor critical for how T-regs function.

"The pioneering work has revealed how the immune system is kept in check by regulatory T cells, stopping it from mistakenly targeting the healthy cells," said a leading physiology expert.

"The work is a striking illustration of how basic biological study can have far-reaching implications for public health."