Clinical Treg Use Now Possible: Sakaguchi in Nobel Lecture

Stockholm, Dec. 7 (Jiji Press)–Shimon Sakaguchi, the Japanese winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, emphasized in a lecture Sunday that the clinical application of regulatory T cells he discovered in 1995 is possible now. In his Nobel Lecture titled “Regulatory T cells for Immune Tolerance: Discovery and Clinical Prospects” at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, the 74-year-old specially appointed professor at the University of Osaka spent 30 minutes to elaborate on studies and achievements by various researchers, including those at the Aichi Cancer Center, where Sakaguchi was a research student, that led him to find a class of immune cells called regulatory T cells–Tregs in short–that protect the body from autoimmune diseases. Then he pointed out that there are multiple therapeutic applications of Tregs, including by controlling their number, and that they can be used to fight autoimmune diseases, cure organ transplantation-related disorders and enhance immune responses to tumors. “So now Tregs are ready to go to the clinic,” Sakaguchi stressed. Sakaguchi ended his lecture by acknowledging those who contributed to his work, including his wife, Noriko, whom he called “a partner in my life and also a collaborator in research.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]