The Karolinska Institute of Stockholm (Sweden) has granted on Monday to American scientists Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell, and Japanese Shimon Sakaguchi “about peripheral immune tolerance.” The winners identified the “security guards of the immune system”, the regulatory T cells, which prevent the immune system from attacking our own body, according to the Committee.
“His discoveries have been fundamental for our understanding of the functioning of the immune system and why not all humans develop autoimmune diseases,” explained Olle Kämpe, president of the jury.
The key discovery in this field was made by the Japanese immunologist Shimon Sakaguchi in 1995. After years of research without recognition in his field, the researcher managed to isolate these regulatory T cells for the first time, which are an essential type of lymphocyte that modulates the activity of the immune system and protects the body of autoimmune diseases. Until that time, most researchers were convinced that immune tolerance only developed because potentially harmful immune cells were eliminated in the thymus, through a process called central tolerance. This gland located in the chest, under the sternum, is where the different types of lymphocytes, or white blood cells are generated and mature, which are part of the adaptive immune system that protects us from infections, pathogens and other external aggressions. The 74 -year -old researcher receives a third of the award for this finding.
Americans Mary Brunkow, 61, and Fred Ramsdell, 60, share the award for their research on autoimmune diseases, specifically on the gene Foxp3. Scientists discovered a mutation in this gene that increased the risk of autoimmune diseases to laboratory mice. Brunkow, molecular biologist, and Ramsdell, immunologist, showed that other mutations in this gene cause serious autoimmune ailments in humans. At present, Brunkow works in the United States. Ramsdell is the scientific advisor of, the company that co -founded in 2019 in the United States to develop treatments against rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases based on regulatory T cells.
After those findings, Sakaguchi showed that this gene governs the production of regulatory T cells, which gave name. It is an essential component so that the rest of the immune system tolerate the tissues of the body itself and not attack them.
This year’s medicine laureate Shimon Sakaguchi discovered a new class of T cells.
Sakaguchi was swimming against the tide in 1995, when he made a key discovery. At the time, many researchers were convinced that immune tolerance only developed due to potentially harmful immune…
– The Nobel Prize (@nobelprze)
The jury stressed that the work of these three scientists has opened a new field and brings new treatments against cancer and autoimmune ailments. At present, these regulatory cells extracted from the thymus have been essential to avoid rejection in transplants and there are already clinical trials to demonstrate their effectiveness as a generalized treatment.
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has recognized 229 researchers, of which 14 have been women.
Last year the American researchers Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun received the prize and describe their role in “post -transcriptive gene regulation.” The finding of Ambros, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts (United States), and Ruvkun, linked to the Massachusetts General Hospital, reveals a completely new principle of essential genetic regulation for the development and functioning of multicellular organisms, including humans. In 2023 they won him for the Covid vaccine and in 2022 for revealing the genetics of extinct humans.
115 awards in the medicine category had already been delivered until Monday. This will be the first award that is delivered this week, which will be followed by, on Tuesday, and the one on Wednesday. Each award is endowed with 11 million Swedish crowns, approximately one million euros.
