The Japanese physician and immunologist Shimon Sakaguchi, the American immunologist Fred Ramsdell and the American molecular biologist Mary Brunkow have been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine. The work of the three researchers has completely changed our understanding of the immune system.
In 1995, Shimon Sakaguchi discovered a previously unknown type of immune cell, the Regulatory T cell (Treg). The immune system’s T cells are like an army, trained to kill invaders. The thymus eliminates any rogue T cells that might attack the body’s own cells—a process called “central tolerance.” But why then do some of us still develope autoimmune diseases?
Sakaguchi showed there was a second layer of protection outside the thymus. The Tregs act as brakes or peacekeepers, actively moving around the body to suppress other immune cells that get confused and mistakenly try to attack the body’s own organs.
In 2001, Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell were studying a strain of mice that suffered from a severe, fatal autoimmune disorder. They managed to identify the exact genetic defect responsible for the disease: a mutation in a previously unknown gene they named Foxp3. They then found that a mutation in the human version of this gene also causes a severe, rare autoimmune disorder called IPEX syndrome. The broken Foxp3 gene meant the immune system started attacking the body. In other words, the Foxp3 gene was a master control switch for immune regulation.
Two years later, Sakaguchi was able to link the two discoveries by showing that the Foxp3 gene found by Brunkow and Ramsdell is the master switch that controls the development and function of the Regulatory T cells Tregs, which he had discovered.
The three Nobel laureats essentially demonstrated that, if you have properly functioning Tregs, thanks to a healthy Foxp3 gene, your immune system maintains peace or “self-tolerance”. If this system breaks down, your immune system turns on you, causing autoimmune disease. Their collective work created the field of peripheral immune tolerance and forms the basis for developing new treatments for conditions such as autoimmune diseases, cancer immunotherapy and organ transplantation.
8 Responses to Nobel Prize for 3 scientists who discovered that “Regulatory T cells are the immune system’s ‘security guards’ that prevent immune cells from attacking our own body”
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So yet another year in which a Nobel prize is not won for homeopathy.
I wasn’t gonna rub it in, but you are correct, of course [probably next year!]
The fewer prizes it gets, the better it is 😉
Actual science in action and well deserved. I reckon RFK jr will ignore this for precisely these reasons.
makes me wonder how the alt- med folks who “do their own research” are reacting……
they will soon claim that their SCAMs affect TRegs, I suppose.
From 20 years ago:
Superb!