Nobel Winner's Team Develops Tech to Make Regulatory T Cells

Tokyo, Oct. 29 (Jiji Press)--A Japanese research team including 2025 Nobel Prize laureate Shimon Sakaguchi has developed a technique to produce regulatory T cells that suppress excessive immune activity.

Sakaguchi, professor at the University of Osaka, is among those set to receive this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their T cell research.

The technique turns T cells into regulatory T cells, boosting the effectiveness in curing inflammation and autoimmune diseases. An article on the technique appeared this month in the U.S. journal Science Translational Medicine.

Among T cells, a type of immune cells, some mistakenly attack normal cells and tissue, causing inflammation and autoimmune diseases. While researchers have developed cures to control such T cells by utilizing regulatory T cells, it was difficult to create stable regulatory T cells.

The team succeeded in turning T cells from mice suffering autoimmune diseases into stable regulatory T cells with a special culture method.

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