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The prestigious award in medical science has been awarded for transformative findings that clarify how the immune system targets dangerous pathogens while sparing the healthy tissues.

Three renowned scientists—from Japan Shimon Sakaguchi and US scientists Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this accolade.

The research uncovered unique "security guards" within the defense system that remove rogue defense cells capable of attacking the organism.

The findings are now enabling new treatments for immune disorders and cancer.

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

Decisive Discoveries

"The work has been essential for understanding how the body's defenses functions and why we don't all suffer from severe autoimmune diseases," stated the chair of the Nobel Committee.

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

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

Such cells utilize detectors—known as receptors—that are produced by chance in countless variations.

This gives the defense network the ability to combat a wide array of threats, but the randomness of the mechanism unavoidably creates white blood cells that can target the host.

Security Guards of the Body

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

This year's Nobel Prize recognizes the discovery of regulatory T-cells—described as the body's "security guards"—which travel through the body to neutralize any defenders that attack the body's own tissues.

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

A Nobel panel stated, "These findings have established a new field of investigation and spurred the development of new therapies, for instance for cancer and immune disorders."

In malignancies, regulatory T-cells block the system from fighting the growth, so research are aimed at reducing their numbers.

For self-attack disorders, experiments are testing increasing regulatory T-cells so the organism is no longer being harmed. A similar approach could also be useful in reducing the chances of organ transplant failure.

Innovative Studies

Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, of Osaka University, performed tests on rodents that had their thymus extracted, leading to self-attack conditions.

The researcher showed that injecting defense cells from other mice could prevent the illness—implying there was a mechanism for preventing defenders from attacking the host.

Mary Brunkow, from the a research center in Seattle, and Dr. Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in a California city, were studying an genetic autoimmune disease in rodents and people that resulted in the identification of a gene critical for how regulatory T-cells operate.

"The pioneering work has revealed how the immune system is kept in check by T-reg cells, preventing it from mistakenly targeting the body's own tissues," said a prominent physiology specialist.

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