[STOCKHOLM] Three scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries on the immune system that have led to new research and work on therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Mary E Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi will share the 11 million-krona (S$1.5 million) award, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm said in a statement on Monday (Oct 6).
Brunkow and Ramsdell are based in the US, while Sakaguchi works at Osaka University in his native Japan. Brunkow’s linked with the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, while Ramsdell is affiliated with Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Fransisco.
The three were recognised “for their groundbreaking discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance that prevents the immune system from harming the body,” the Nobel Committee said. They “identified the immune system’s security guards, regulatory T cells, thus laying the foundation for a new field of research.”
The discoveries have also led to the development of potential medical treatments that are now being evaluated in clinical trials, the Committee said.
Annual prizes for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace were established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who died in 1896. A prize in economic sciences was added by Sweden’s central bank in 1968.
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Last year’s medicine Nobel was awarded to two American scientists for their discovery of a fundamental principle governing how gene activity is regulated via tiny RNA molecules. Other notable discoveries to have earned the honors include insulin in 1923, penicillin in 1945 and the molecular structure of DNA in 1962.
The laureates are announced through Oct 13 in Stockholm, with the exception of the Nobel Peace Prize, whose recipients are selected on Friday by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo. BLOOMBERG
