The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded Monday to Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell of the United States, as well as Shimon Sakaguchi of Japan, for their study into how the immune system is kept in check, according to the Nobel jury.
Their insights have contributed significantly to our understanding of how the immune system works and why not everyone develops severe autoimmune illnesses.
The three were honored “for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance,” the jury said.
“Their discoveries have laid the foundation for a new field of research and spurred the development of new treatments, for example, for cancer and autoimmune diseases,” it added.
Their results may possibly contribute to more effective transplants.
Sakaguchi, aged 74, made the first significant finding in 1995.
Many researchers believed at the time that immunological tolerance arose solely as a result of potentially dangerous immune cells being removed in the thymus via a process known as “central tolerance.”
Sakaguchi demonstrated that the immune system is more sophisticated and identified a previously unknown type of immune cell that protects the body from autoimmune illnesses.
Brunkow, born in 1961, and Ramsdell, 64, made the other major discovery in 2001, explaining why specific mice were more susceptible to autoimmune disorders.
“They had discovered that mice have a mutation in a gene that they named Foxp3,” the jury said.
“They also showed that mutations in the human equivalent of this gene cause a serious autoimmune disease, IPEX.”
Two years later, Sakaguchi was able to connect these findings.
King Carl XVI Gustaf will present the trio with their prize—a diploma, a gold medal, and a $1.2 million check—at a formal event in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of physicist Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.
Nobel established the prizes in his last will and testament.
The Nobel season continues this week with the announcements of the winners of the physics award on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday, literature on Thursday, peace on Friday, and economics on Monday, October 13.
