A research team led by Nobel Prize winner Shimon Sakaguchi, a specially appointed professor at Osaka University, has announced a breakthrough in mass-producing regulatory T cells (Tregs)—a key advance that could transform the treatment of autoimmune diseases, reports Japan News (YS).
Professor Sakaguchi, who will receive the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering Tregs, said the new technology marks “the first step toward human application.”
T cells, a vital component of the immune system, normally attack harmful invaders such as bacteria and viruses. However, some become rogue T cells, mistakenly targeting the body’s own tissues and causing inflammation and autoimmune disorders. Regulatory T cells (Tregs) act as a brake on these harmful immune responses, but producing large quantities of stable, functional Tregs for therapy has long been a challenge.
Sakaguchi’s team addressed this by extracting inflammatory T cells from the blood of mice with autoimmune conditions and culturing them for two weeks using a proprietary cell-culture method. The process not only expanded the number of cells but successfully converted many into stable Tregs.
When administered to mice suffering from colitis caused by immune dysfunction, the newly generated Tregs effectively suppressed inflammation. Similar results were observed in experiments involving bone marrow transplant–related inflammation, where the 30-day survival rate rose from under 25% to about 70% among treated mice.
“This is a major step toward developing cell-based therapies for autoimmune diseases,” Sakaguchi said. “We hope to apply this technology to a wide range of immune disorders.”
The team plans to begin clinical trials in the United States as early as next year to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the treatment in human patients with autoimmune diseases. In Japan, trials are being prepared for pemphigus vulgaris, a rare and currently incurable autoimmune skin disease that causes severe blistering across the body.
Professor Hiroshi Kawamoto, an immunologist at Kyoto University, praised the breakthrough, noting that the Tregs created using Sakaguchi’s technique are “robust and practical for therapeutic use.”
“This could lay the foundation for next-generation immune treatments,” Kawamoto said. “It’s now time to confirm their effectiveness in humans.”
Osaka University also announced on Wednesday that it has conferred upon Sakaguchi the title of Distinguished Honorary Professor in recognition of his scientific contributions.
Bd-pratidin English/ Jisan
