STOCKHOLM – Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Dr. Shimon Sakaguchi won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025 on Monday for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.
Local perspective:
Brunkow, 64, is a senior program manager at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle. Ramsdell, 64, is a scientific adviser for Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco. Sakaguchi, 74, is a distinguished professor at the Immunology Frontier Research Center at Osaka University in Japan.
STOCKHOLM, STOCKHOLM COUNTY, SWEDEN, OCTOBER 06: Announcement of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025 awarded by the Nobel Assembly to scientists Mary E. Brunkow (USA), Fred Ramsdell (USA) and Shimon Sakaguchi (Japan) for their discoveries
The backstory:
In 1995, Sakaguchi made a pivotal discovery by identifying a previously unknown class of immune cells that actively protect the body from autoimmune diseases, challenging the prevailing belief that immune tolerance was solely achieved through the elimination of harmful cells in the thymus (central tolerance). His work demonstrated a more complex immune system than was understood at the time.
In 2001, Brunkow and Ramsdell discovered that a mutation in the p3 gene explained why a specific mouse strain was prone to autoimmune diseases, further showing that the equivalent human gene mutation causes the severe autoimmune disease IPEX. Two years later, Sakaguchi connected this finding to his earlier work, proving that the p3 gene controls the development of the immune cells he had identified in 1995.
These critical cells, now known as regulatory T cells, function by monitoring other immune cells to ensure the immune system tolerates the body’s own tissues.
The award, officially known as the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, is the first of the 2025 Nobel Prize announcements and was announced by a panel at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
The Source: Information in this story came from a press release from the Nobel Prize and the Associated Press.
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