The Nobel panel announced on Monday that a US-Japanese team had received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for finding the immune system’s “security guards” and studying how they are maintained.
Understanding how the immune system works and why not everyone develops severe autoimmune disorders has been made possible by the discoveries made by Japanese researcher Shimon Sakaguchi and American researchers Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell.
“It’s an honor for me,” Sakaguchi, a professor at the Immunology Frontier Research Centre in Osaka, told Swedish radio Sveriges Radio. To accept the honor in person, I’m excited to travel to Stockholm in December.
However, the two US-based laureates could not be reached by the Nobel committee to personally deliver the news to them.
“If you hear this, call me,” the head of the Nobel Assembly, Thomas Perlmann, joked at the press conference announcing the winners.
The three won the prize for research that identified the immune system’s “security guards”, called regulatory T-cells.
Their research on “peripheral immune tolerance”—which keeps the body safe from immune system damage—has spawned a new area of study and the creation of promising medical interventions that are currently undergoing clinical trials.
“The hope is to be able to treat or cure autoimmune diseases, provide more effective cancer treatments and prevent serious complications after stem cell transplants,” the panel of experts stated.
