Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Dr Shimon Sakaguchi won the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering how the immune system controls T-reg cells, ensuring peripheral immune tolerance. Their work has advanced understanding of autoimmune diseases and how the Foxp3 gene regulates immune system balance
Dr Shimon Sakaguchi
Mary E Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Dr Shimon Sakaguchi won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance. Brunkow, 64, is a senior program manager at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle. Ramsdell, 64, is a scientific adviser for Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco. Sakaguchi, 74, is a distinguished professor at the Immunology Frontier Research Centre at Osaka University in Japan.
The immune system has systems to detect and fight viruses. Key immune warriors, such as T cells, get trained on how to spot bad actors. If some instead go awry in a way that might trigger autoimmune diseases, they’re supposed to be eliminated in the thymus, a process called central tolerance. The Nobel winners unravelled an additional way the body keeps the system in check.
It started with Sakaguchi’s discovery in 1995 of a previously unknown T cell subtype now known as regulatory T cells or T-regs. Then, in 2001, Brunkow and Ramsdell discovered a culprit mutation in a gene named Foxp3, a gene that also plays a role in a rare human autoimmune disease. Two years later, Sakaguchi linked the discoveries to show that the Foxp3 gene controls the development of those T-regs.
This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
