2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine presented to Brunkow, Ramsdell and Sakaguchi
Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi were named the winers of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025 for their “fundamental discoveries relating to peripheral immune tolerance,” Kazinform News Agency learned from nobelprize.org.
The laureates discovered regulatory T cells - key guardians of the immune system - that help prevent immune cells from mistakenly attacking the body’s own tissues.
“Their discoveries have been decisive for our understanding of how the immune system functions and why we do not all develop serious autoimmune diseases,” Olle Kämpe, chair of the Nobel Committee, says.
In 1995, Shimon Sakaguchi, a Japanese immunologist, made his first key discovery. At the time, most researchers believed that immune tolerance was solely the result of elimination of potentially harmful immune cells in the thymus - a process known as central tolerance. Sakaguchi proved that the immune system is more complex and discovered a previously unknown class of immune cells that play a crucial role in protecting the body from autoimmune diseases.
In 2001, American researchers Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell made another breakthrough. Their research explained “why a specific mouse strain was particularly vulnerable to autoimmune diseases.” They discovered that the mice have a mutation in a gene called as Foxp3. They also revealed that the mutations in the human equivalent of this gene may cause IPEX, a serious autoimmune disease.
Two years later, Sakaguchi connected these findings. He proved that the Foxp3 gene is essential for the development of the immune cells he had identified earlier. These cells, now known as regulatory T cells, serve to monitor other immune cells, ensuring that it does not mistakenly attack the body’s own tissues.
“The laureates’ discoveries launched the field of peripheral tolerance, spurring the development of medical treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases. This may also lead to more successful transplantations. Several of these treatments are now undergoing clinical trials,” a press release from the Nobel Committee reads.
Recall that The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2024 has been awarded to American scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation. Their research has provided insight into how microRNAs regulate gene activity in cells.