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

A trio of esteemed researchers—from Japan Prof. Sakaguchi and US experts Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell—share this honor.

The work uncovered specialized "sentinels" within the immune system that remove rogue immune cells that could harming the body.

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

The laureates will share a prize fund valued at 11m Swedish kronor.

Decisive Discoveries

"Their research has been decisive for comprehending how the body's defenses functions and why we do not all suffer from severe self-attack conditions," stated the head of the award panel.

This trio's research address a core question: How does the immune system defend us from countless infections while leaving our own tissues intact?

The immune system uses white blood cells that search for signs of infection, even pathogens and germs it has not met before.

These defenders utilize detectors—called recognition units—that are produced by chance in countless combinations.

This provides the immune system the capacity to combat a broad range of invaders, but the unpredictability of the mechanism unavoidably creates white blood cells that can attack the body.

Security Guards of the Body

Scientists earlier knew that some of these problematic white blood cells were destroyed in the thymus—where immune cells develop.

The latest award honors the discovery of regulatory T-cells—known as the body's "peacekeepers"—which travel through the system to disarm other immune cells that attack the healthy cells.

It is known that this process malfunctions in self-attack conditions such as juvenile diabetes, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis.

A Nobel panel stated, "The discoveries have laid the foundation for a novel area of research and spurred the creation of new treatments, for instance for tumors and autoimmune diseases."

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

For autoimmune diseases, experiments are testing increasing T-reg cells so the body is not under attack. A comparable method could also be effective in reducing the risks of organ transplant failure.

Innovative Experiments

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

He demonstrated that injecting defense cells from healthy mice could prevent the illness—suggesting there was a system for blocking defenders from attacking the body.

Dr. Brunkow, affiliated with the a research center in a US city, and Dr. Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in a California city, were investigating an inherited autoimmune disease in rodents and people that resulted in the discovery of a genetic factor vital for the way T-regs function.

"Their groundbreaking work has revealed how the immune system is controlled by regulatory T cells, preventing it from accidentally attacking the body's own tissues," commented a prominent biological science expert.

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