Japan Excited with Nobel Prize on Immunology

Karolinska Institutet in Sweden announced that 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine would go to three scientists including Shimon Sakaguchi, Distinguished Professor at Osaka University, on their study in immunology. The Nobel Assembly at the institute recognized that they discovered how the immune system is kept in check. Expecting the discovery to contribute to medical treatment for allergic diseases, the people in Japan congratulated the new Japanese Nobel Prize laureate. 

The laureates are Mary E. Brunkow, Senior Program Manager at the Institute for Systems Biology in the United States, Fred Rumsdell from the University of California Los Angeles and Sakaguchi. The prize, 11 million of Swedish kronor, will equally shared by those three laureates.

 

According to the Nobel Committee, their discoveries were related to peripheral immune tolerance. “The laureates identified the immune security guards, regulatory T cells, which prevent immune cells from attacking our own body,” says the committee. “Their discoveries have been decisive for our understanding of how the immune system functions and why we do not all develop serious autoimmune diseases.”

 

The immune system in our body blocks aliens, such as germs or viruses, using function of various cells connecting each other. However, the system sometimes works on something not a microbe for some reason. Sakaguchi discovered that there were a kind of T cells which would slow down immune system. He named that kind of cells “regulatory T cells.”

 

The discovery of regulatory T cells may contribute to various medical treatments. It is expected that diseases of self-immunization, allergy or rejection after transplantation of organs can be mitigated by enhancing function of regulatory T cells. They also found that regulatory T cells discourage immune system that would attack cancer cells. It makes new type of cancer treatment possible by discouraging regulatory T cells.

 

Some kinds of rheumatism are caused by immune system attacking its own organs. Japan has a large number of patients of pollen allergy or asthma. The discovery of regulatory T cells can be applied to medical treatment for those diseases. Sakaguchi was interested in that ambivalence of immune system in his younger days. His families and friends have been looking forward to his participation in the Nobel Prize laureates.

 

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba made a phone call to Sakaguchi as soon as the Nobel Committee announced the awarding. To the question of Ishiba who asked how many years would be required to establish technology for taking advantage of that immune system, Sakaguchi suggested twenty years, convincing Ishiba that cancer would not be a threat someday. It is ordinary for the Japanese to congratulate a Japanese who receives one of the Nobel Prizes.

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