Trio of scientists – two of them American and one Japanese – won Nobel Prize In medicine, for their discoveries regarding peripheral immune tolerance, the mechanism with which the body helps to prevent its own tissues instead of foreign invaders.
Mary E. Brancoou, Fred Ramsdell and Shmon Sakaguchi will share the prize for discoveries that “launched the area of peripheral tolerance, stimulating the development of medical methods for treating cancer and autoimmune diseases,” the Nobel meeting in the press release says. The trio will now share prize money in 11 million Swedish crowns (almost 1.2 million dollars).
“It can also lead to more successful transplantation. Some of these treatment methods are currently undergoing clinical trials, ”he added.
Autoimmune diseases can be caused when T -cells, the main mechanism for protecting our body from harmful pathogens, and a malfunction.
Together, the openings of the Trio laid the decisive basis for understanding the other way to which our immune system controls itself, known as peripheral tolerance – the key to what some people suffer from certain autoimmune diseases, while others do not.
To prevent damage, our body is trying to eliminate faulty T -cells in the lymphoid organ located in the chest called thimus through the process known as central tolerance, according to Associated pressField
The opening began in 1995, when the Sakaguchi, an outstanding professor of the immunological research center at the University of Osaka in Japan, found that the previously unknown class of immune cells that protect against autoimmune diseases.
Six years later, in 2001, Mary Brancoou, now the senior head of the program at the Institute of System Biology in Seattle, along with Ramsdell, now Sonoma Biotherapeutics, a specific genetic mutation, which leads to a serious autoimmune disease called IPEX.
They called this gene Foxp3.
In 2003, Sakaguchi was able to prove that in fact, it was the Foxp3 gene that controls the development of cells, which he identified almost ten years ago. These cells are currently known as regulatory T -cells, and their task is to control other T -cells and guarantee that they do not become wrong.
“Their discoveries were decisive for our understanding of how the immune system is functioning and why not everyone develops serious autoimmune diseases,” said Olle Kampe, chairman of the Nobel Committee.
Declaring the award, Thomas Perlmann, Secretary General of the Nobel Committee, said that he was able to contact Sakaguchi only on Monday morning.
“I took possession of him in his laboratory, and he sounded incredibly grateful, expressed that it was a fantastic honor. He was quite captured by the news, ”said Perlmann, adding that Sakaguchi said that he had left the voice mail for Brankov and Ramsdell.
The award ceremony will take place on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobelei, the Swedish industrialist, who founded a reward to find out those who contributed to the most humanity. The first award was awarded in 1901 on the fifth anniversary of his death.
The announcement of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was made at Stockholm at the Carolinskaya Institute on Monday, and on Tuesday on Wednesday will be followed by a prize in physics, on Wednesday and a Prize of literature on Thursday.
The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday.
