The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi for their work on the functioning of the human immune system.

The award, announced by Sweden’s Karolinska Institute on Monday, was handed to the trio for “their groundbreaking discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance that prevents the immune system from harming the body”.

The research “relates to how we keep our immune system under control so we can fight all imaginable microbes and still avoid autoimmune disease,” said Marie Wahren-Herlenius, a rheumatology professor at the Karolinska Institute.

The prize of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1.17 million) is to be shared equally between Brunkow and Ramsdell of the United States and Japan’s Sakaguchi.

The king of Sweden

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