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

A trio of esteemed researchers—Japan's Shimon Sakaguchi and US experts Dr. Brunkow and Dr. Ramsdell—share this honor.

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

These discoveries are now enabling new treatments for autoimmune diseases and cancer.

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

Decisive Findings

"Their work has been decisive for understanding how the body's defenses functions and why we do not all suffer from serious self-attack conditions," stated the head of the Nobel Committee.

This team's research explain a fundamental question: In what way does the defense system defend us from countless invaders while leaving our healthy cells intact?

Our body's protection system employs white blood cells that search for indicators of infection, even viruses and bacteria it has never encountered.

These cells utilize sensors—known as recognition units—that are generated randomly in countless variations.

This gives the defense network the capacity to fight a broad range of threats, but the unpredictability of the process inevitably creates white blood cells that may attack the body.

Protectors of the Immune System

Scientists previously 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—described as the body's "peacekeepers"—which patrol the system to neutralize any defenders that attack the healthy cells.

We know that this process fails in self-attack conditions such as type-1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

A Nobel panel added, "The findings have laid the foundation for a new field of investigation and spurred the development of innovative treatments, for instance for tumors and immune disorders."

In cancer, T-regs prevent the body from attacking the growth, so research are focused on lowering their numbers.

For autoimmune diseases, trials are exploring increasing regulatory T-cells so the body is not under attack. A similar approach could also be useful in reducing the chances of organ transplant failure.

Innovative Studies

Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, from a Japanese institution, performed experiments on rodents that had their thymus extracted, causing self-attack conditions.

He demonstrated that introducing immune cells from healthy mice could prevent the disease—implying there was a mechanism for preventing defenders from harming the body.

Mary Brunkow, from the a research center in Seattle, and Fred Ramsdell, currently at a biotech firm in a California city, were studying an inherited autoimmune disease in mice and humans that resulted in the discovery of a genetic factor critical for how regulatory T-cells function.

"The groundbreaking work has uncovered how the immune system is kept in check by regulatory T cells, stopping it from accidentally targeting the healthy cells," said a leading biological science expert.

"The work is a remarkable illustration of how basic physiological study can have broad consequences for human health."