American and Japanese scientists win the Nobel Prize in Medicine

Scientists Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for “their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance,” the prize -delivery body said on Monday.

This year’s price “relates to how we keep our immune system under control so that we can fight all imaginable microbes while avoiding autoimmune diseases,” said Marie Wahren-Herlenius, rheumatology professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

Brunkow is main program director at the Seattle Systems Biology Institute. Ramsdell is a scientific advisor for Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco. Sakaguchi is a distinguished professor at the Immunology Frontier Research Center at the University of Osaka in Japan.

“Their discoveries have laid the foundations for a new field of research and have stimulated the development of new treatments, for example for cancer and autoimmune diseases,” said the prize scholar in a press release.

The winners have identified so-called regulatory T cells, which act as the security guards of the immune system which prevent immune cells from attacking our own body, he added.

Japanese PM congratulates the winner

Sakaguchi expressed his surprise at a press conference in Osaka, western Japan because he believed that any major recognition would have depended on more development progress.

“I used to think that a kind of reward could be to come if what we do is progressing a little further and that it will become more beneficial for people in clinical areas,” he said. Sakaguchi was interrupted at some point to take a phone call from Congratulations by Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

After announcing the winners, Thomas Perlmann of the Institute said that specific therapies had not yet won market authorization, but more than 200 trials on humans involving regulatory T cells were underway.

Among the companies in the first races, Sonoma Biotherapeutics in Ramsdell is partly funded and supported by the American drug manufacturer Regeneron to work on therapies against diseases such as inflammatory intestine diseases.

Also targeting this condition, Tesra Therapeutics joined forces with Astrazeneca.

The other biotechnological companies exploring the approach are Buyer’s bluerock.

The Nobel Prize was created by the rich Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel, who, in his will, dictated that most of his succession should be used to finance “prices to those who, during the previous year, conferred the greatest advantage to humanity”.

Peace prize which will be awarded on Friday

Nobel is best known as the inventor of Dynamite, but also wrote poetry and theater and could speak Russian, French, English and German at the age of 17. The five original price categories reflect the interests closest to his heart.

The Nobel Awards, which are also awarded for exceptional achievements in physics, chemistry, literature and peace, come with a price of 11 million Swedish crowns ($ 1.6 million CDN).

The prices for chemistry and physics will be awarded Tuesday and Wednesday, literature Thursday and peace prize on Friday. The price of the economy will be announced on October 13.

Nobel notable winners include scientists Albert Einstein and Marie Curie, authors Ernest Hemingway and Albert Camus, and inspiring personalities such as Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa.

Nobel prizes are presented at the winners on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death.