Researchers Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell of the United States, together with Shimon Sakaguchi of Japan, have been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Their decades of work revealed how the immune system prevents itself from attacking healthy tissue, discoveries that have shaped new directions in medicine for autoimmune disease, organ transplants, and cancer therapy.
The Karolinska Institute in Sweden, which awards the prize, said their research clarified how the body’s defenses tell the difference between harmful invaders and its own cells. Each laureate will receive a share of the 11 million Swedish kronor prize, worth about 1.2 million dollars, during the December ceremony in Stockholm.
Sakaguchi, a professor at Osaka University, first identified a rare group of immune cells in 1995 that act as regulators within the immune system. These cells, now known as regulatory T cells, play a crucial role in keeping other immune cells from attacking the body.
In 2001, Brunkow and Ramsdell identified the Foxp3 gene, which controls the production of those regulatory cells. Mutations in Foxp3 can lead to life-threatening autoimmune disorders, including IPEX syndrome, in which the body’s immune response destroys healthy tissues. Two years later, Sakaguchi confirmed that Foxp3 governs the development and function of the regulatory cells he had found earlier, linking the two discoveries.
Thomas Perlmann, Secretary-General of the Nobel Committee, said the research “helped define one of the immune system’s key safeguards.” More than 200 clinical trials are now exploring ways to use regulatory T cells to treat diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, lupus, and some forms of cancer.
Brunkow now works at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Ramsdell serves as an adviser to Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, a company developing therapies based on immune regulation. Speaking from Osaka, Sakaguchi said he was both surprised and grateful for the recognition and expressed optimism that future research would make cancer more manageable.
The discoveries opened a path for scientists to control immune activity with precision, suppressing unwanted attacks in autoimmune conditions or stimulating immune defenses to target tumors.
The Nobel Prize in Medicine marks the start of Nobel week, which will continue with the Physics, Chemistry, Literature, and Peace awards in the days ahead. The tradition, dating back to 1901, celebrates advances that contribute to the progress and welfare of humanity.
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