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This year's prestigious award in medical science was awarded for revolutionary findings that clarify how the immune system attacks dangerous pathogens while sparing the body's own cells.

A trio of renowned researchers—Japan's Prof. Sakaguchi and US scientists Mary Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this honor.

The research uncovered unique "security guards" within the immune system that remove rogue defense cells that could attacking the body.

The findings are now paving the way for new therapies for immune disorders and cancer.

These laureates will divide a prize fund valued at 11 million Swedish kronor.

Decisive Findings

"Their research has been essential for understanding how the immune system functions and the reason we don't all suffer from serious self-attack conditions," stated the head of the Nobel Committee.

The trio's research explain a fundamental mystery: In what way does the defense system defend us from countless invaders while keeping our healthy cells intact?

Our body's protection system employs immune cells that scan for signs of disease, even viruses and bacteria it has never encountered.

Such cells employ detectors—known as receptors—that are produced randomly in a vast number of combinations.

That provides the defense network the capacity to fight a wide array of threats, but the randomness of the process unavoidably produces immune cells that may attack the host.

Security Guards of the Body

Scientists previously understood that a portion of these harmful defense cells were destroyed in the immune organ—the site where immune cells mature.

The latest Nobel Prize honors the identification of regulatory T-cells—known as the body's "peacekeepers"—which patrol the body to disarm any defenders that attack the healthy cells.

It is known that this process fails in autoimmune diseases such as juvenile diabetes, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis.

A Nobel panel added, "The findings have laid the foundation for a new field of research and spurred the development of new treatments, for instance for tumors and autoimmune diseases."

In cancer, regulatory T-cells block the body from fighting the tumor, so research are aimed at reducing their numbers.

For autoimmune diseases, experiments are exploring increasing regulatory T-cells so the organism is not under attack. A similar approach could also be useful in minimizing the chances of transplanted organ failure.

Pioneering Studies

Prof Sakaguchi, from Osaka University, conducted experiments on rodents that had their thymus removed, leading to self-attack conditions.

He showed that introducing immune cells from other mice could prevent the disease—implying there was a mechanism for preventing immune cells from harming the host.

Mary Brunkow, from the a research center in a US city, and Fred Ramsdell, currently at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were studying an genetic autoimmune disease in rodents and people that led to the identification of a genetic factor vital for the way regulatory T-cells operate.

"The pioneering research has revealed how the immune system is controlled by T-reg cells, stopping it from mistakenly targeting the healthy cells," commented a leading physiology specialist.

"This work is a striking illustration of how fundamental biological study can have broad consequences for public health."