Each cell in our body is uniquely suited to perform its tasks, and one of its major tasks is to keep the body protected from outside influence. Everyday, your body is fighting a battle, a battle against the millions of parasites and viruses present in the atmosphere which means your body is a battle hardened warrior ready to pounce on any enemy.

Here lies the problem of maintaining and restricting this battle hardened soldier. It constantly wants to fight and it is often blind to its surroundings. Therefore, the soldier mistakenly sometimes attacks the very king it is sworn to protect, that is the human organs. 

There are multitudes of ‘Autoimmune’ diseases. ‘Autoimmune’ means they are not triggered by outside attacks rather these diseases occur because the body’s immune system deems some parts of its own organs a threat for its survival. 

This weird trigger causes the immune system to attack its host causing enormous problems. Fortunately, owing to the research of Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi we now know which security guards are responsible for keeping the immune system at bay. As they are the ones ensuring that the soldier points the gun at the right perpetrator and not at himself, opening up a new frontier of further research into autoimmune diseases. 

Understanding autoimmune diseases 

The autoimmune diseases in question are some of the most common in the world today. From Type 1 diabetes to Alopecia (the one Will Smith’s wife has, which makes you go bald), these diseases are manageable but sometimes fatal. 

To non medical professionals such as ourselves, our immune system attacking our own body may be something hard to comprehend, but these instances are not so rare anymore. 

For example, Type 1 diabetes is caused by the immune system mistakenly destroying our own insulin producing cells, leading to a shortage and a rise in our own blood sugar. For numerous reasons, the immune system is triggered to believe that the hormone named insulin is not beneficial for the body, thereby eliminating it is the best move forward. 

The research done by 2025 Nobel Laureates precisely delves into why somebody’s T cells have the power to stop the immune system from causing self harm while in others, it fails to do so, misleading the immune system to attack. 

Impact on current understandings 

In a quote in the official press release, the Chair of the Nobel Committee shared, “Their discoveries have been decisive for our understanding of how the immune system functions and why we do not all develop serious autoimmune diseases.”

There is also a substantive opportunity for understanding the role of these regulatory T cells in cancerous situations. In many cases, the body in its own defense aggravates cancer cells instead of targeting it to be a threat. 

Most clinical trials often target the immune system in order to stop the cancer from spreading, however, due to this discovery, medication may gain the potential to attack or stimulate the regulatory T cells themselves rather than compromising the immune system, which could be revolutionary in the way we treat cancerous cells. 

Their research also has the potential to regulate the immune system’s response to threats. One of the laureates, Shimon Sakaguchi showed that Foxp3 gene is crucial for the development of regulatory T cells, which control other T cells, ensuring the immune system reacts and calms down at appropriate times. “Until the trio’s research was published, immunologists didn’t understand the complexity of how the body differentiates foreign cells from its own,” said Dr. Jonathan Schneck, a cellular immunology expert at Johns Hopkins University.

The laureates’ discoveries launched the field of peripheral tolerance, spurring the development of medical treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases. This may also lead to more successful transplantations. Several of these treatments are now undergoing clinical trials. 

In the rapidly developing landscape of medical research, their discovery will prove to be a launching pad as greater analytical methodologies using AI models are implemented. Moreover, it is another big leap into understanding how and why our body’s soldiers behave the way they do.