What are Regulatory T-Cells? Nobel for Breakthrough Discovery of Immune System's 'Security Guards'

Asianet News English

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi for their groundbreaking discovery of regulatory T-cells, the immune system’s ‘security guards.’ These cells prevent the body from attacking its own tissues, shedding light on autoimmune diseases like diabetes and lupus, and opening new possibilities in cancer treatment. Find out how this discovery could revolutionize medicine and what lies ahead in clinical trials. &nbsp;

Transcript

00:00The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to three scientists on 6th of October 2025

00:04for a breakthrough discovery. Americans Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell and Japan's

00:10Shimon Sakaguchi, these three found out how our own immune system knows when not to attack us.

00:16It's a puzzle that has stumped experts for years. Our bodies rely on the immune system to stop

00:22dangerous invaders like viruses and bacteria. So the main fighters are special white blood cells

00:28called the T-cells. They are like the police force inside of our bodies, searching for trouble and

00:33clearing it out. But there is a catch. Sometimes those same T-cells go rogue. They start attacking

00:38perfectly healthy cells. That's when things go wrong. Illnesses like type 1 diabetes and lupus

00:45happen because the body's defenders get confused and strike against their own side. So what's

00:51stopping this from happening all the time? For years, scientists thought that the answer was

00:55a thymus. It's a small gland near the heart. T-cells are trained there, learning to tell

01:00friend from foe. Any T-cell that can attack healthy cells is supposed to get caught and destroyed in

01:06the thymus. Still, some slip through the net. And that's where this Nobel winning discovery comes in.

01:13Enter regulatory T-cells or T-rex. Think of them as the body's security guards. When regular T-cells

01:19start looking for trouble in the wrong places, these T-rex pull them back. Jonathan Fisher from

01:25University College London says they are like brakes for the immune system. They make sure that it

01:30doesn't go overboard. From among the three Nobel laureates is Sakaguchi, who was the first to see

01:35that there must be something outside the thymus, keeping T-cells in line. He ran experiments on mice

01:41and found that these extra T-cells called T-rex could stop autoimmune diseases. Brunkow and

01:47Ramsdell pushed the science even further. They discovered that a gene called FOXP3 controls these

01:53T-rex. If the gene is broken, diseases develop both in mice and humans. That's when things got

01:59really exciting for them. Scientists realized that this FOXP3 gene acts as a master switch for the

02:05security guard T-cells. When it's working, T-rex patrol the body and shield it from friendly fire.

02:10When it's broken, those same T-cells can cause serious health problems. Does this mean that new

02:16medicines are coming? Not quite yet. Over 200 clinical trials are underway trying to use T-rex to treat

02:22diseases and make organ transplants safer. There is a hope that these cells could change how we fight

02:29autoimmune illnesses like diabetes or prevent rejected organs. But so far, no drugs from the

02:35research are widely available. There is also a twist. Sometimes cancers can hijack T-rex,

02:41tricking the immune system into ignoring tumors. It's like a security guard getting fooled by a

02:47clever thief. Understanding this could open new doors for cancer therapy. Simon Sakaguchi says that

02:52he hopes the Nobel Prize will push the field toward treatments and cures people soon. Scientists warn that

02:59it will take time. Moving things from the lab to real-life medicine is always slow and expensive.

03:05But this discovery is a turning point. With T-regulators, now we know much more about

03:11how the body keeps itself safe.

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