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This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded for transformative findings that clarify how the immune system attacks dangerous pathogens while sparing the healthy tissues.

Three renowned scientists—Japan's Prof. Sakaguchi and American experts Dr. Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—received this honor.

Their research uncovered unique "sentinels" within the immune system that remove malfunctioning defense cells that could attacking the body.

The findings are now paving the way for innovative treatments for autoimmune diseases and malignancies.

These laureates will share a monetary award valued at 11m Swedish kronor.

Decisive Discoveries

"Their work has been decisive for understanding how the body's defenses operates and why we do not all develop serious autoimmune diseases," commented the chair of the award panel.

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

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

Such defenders employ sensors—known as recognition units—that are produced randomly in countless combinations.

That provides the defense network the capacity to combat a wide array of threats, but the unpredictability of the process unavoidably produces white blood cells that can target the body.

Security Guards of the Body

Researchers earlier knew that a portion of these harmful defense cells were eliminated in the immune organ—the site where immune cells mature.

This year's award recognizes the identification of T-reg cells—known as the immune system's "security guards"—which travel through the system to disarm any defenders that attack the healthy cells.

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

The prize committee added, "These discoveries have laid the foundation for a novel area of investigation and accelerated the development of new treatments, for example for tumors and autoimmune diseases."

In cancer, T-regs block the system from attacking the growth, so studies are aimed at lowering their numbers.

In self-attack disorders, trials are testing increasing T-reg cells so the organism is no longer under attack. A similar method could also be useful in reducing the risks of transplanted organ failure.

Innovative Studies

Prof Shimon Sakaguchi, from a Japanese institution, conducted tests on rodents that had their thymus extracted, causing self-attack conditions.

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

Dr. Brunkow, from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Dr. Ramsdell, now at a biotech firm in San Francisco, were investigating an genetic immune disorder in mice and people that resulted in the identification of a genetic factor critical for the way regulatory T-cells operate.

"The groundbreaking research has revealed how the body's defenses is kept in check by regulatory T cells, preventing it from mistakenly targeting the body's own tissues," commented a leading physiology specialist.

"The research is a striking illustration of how basic physiological study can have far-reaching consequences for public health."