dpa | The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes this year to Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell (both USA) and Shimon Sakaguchi (Japan). They are awarded for their discoveries concerning the so-called peripheral immune tolerance, which prevents the immune system from harming the body. The Karolinska Institute in Stockholm announced this. The most prestigious award for physicians is endowed with 11 million Swedish kronor (about one million euros).
Cornerstone for a New Field of Research
The discoveries of the three researchers have laid the cornerstone for a new field of research and advanced the development of new treatment methods, for example for cancer and autoimmune diseases, according to the justification. Specifically, it concerns mechanisms that prevent the immune system from harming the body’s own tissues.
The laureates identified safety mechanisms of the immune system, the regulatory T cells that prevent immune cells from attacking the body. 「We now understand better how the immune system works and why not everyone develops a severe autoimmune disease,」 said Olle Kämpe, chairman of the Nobel Committee.
Research in Japan and the United States
Brunkow was born in 1961. She earned her PhD at Princeton University in the USA and works at the Institute for Systems Biology in the West Coast metropolis Seattle. The 64-year-old Ramsdell hails from the state of Illinois and earned his PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a scientific advisor at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco. The 74-year-old Japanese Shimon Sakaguchi earned his PhD in 1983 in Kyoto. He is a professor at Osaka University.
Thirty years ago, as the first and to date only German woman, the developmental biologist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard from Tübingen, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine. She was awarded for her work on the genetic control of early embryonal development.
Also last year, two geneticists were honored. The American researchers Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun discovered microRNA, and with it a previously unknown principle of gene regulation.
First prize went to a German bacteriologist
Before this year’s prize, a total of 229 people have received the Nobel Prize in Medicine since 1901, including 13 women. The first went to the German bacteriologist Emil Adolf von Behring for the discovery of a therapy against diphtheria.
With the Medicine Prize began the Nobel Prize cycle. On Tuesday and Wednesday the recipients of the Physics and Chemistry Prizes will be announced. They will be followed by the prizes for Literature and Peace. The sequence of announcements ends next Monday with the so-called Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, funded by the Swedish central bank.
Award Ceremony on December 10
The ceremonial presentation of all awards takes place, as is traditional, on December 10, the anniversary of the death of the prize founder Alfred Nobel (1833-1896). Already on October 1, Stockholm had announced the recipients of this year’s Right Livelihood Award, commonly referred to as the Alternative Nobel Prize.
