Nobel Prize in Medicine 2025 named for American and Japanese scientists

Photo Via (X/Twitter ) –  @channelstv

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell from the United States, along with Shimon Sakaguchi of Japan, for their discoveries about how the immune system is regulated.

Their work centers on peripheral immune tolerance and the identification of regulatory T cells, which prevent immune cells from mistakenly attacking the body’s own tissues. 

Sakaguchi first recognized the existence of regulatory T cells in 1995, challenging prevailing ideas that immune tolerance was controlled only in the thymus.  Brunkow and Ramsdell later discovered the FOXP3 gene mutation in mice with fatal autoimmune disease (the “scurfy” mouse), and linked similar mutations to human autoimmune conditions such as IPEX syndrome. 

The prize amounts to 11 million Swedish kronor, to be shared equally among the laureates.  The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute said their discoveries “have been decisive for our understanding of how the immune system functions and why we do not all develop serious autoimmune diseases.” 

Their discoveries open new paths for treatments in autoimmune diseases, transplant medicine, and cancer immunotherapy by manipulating or harnessing regulatory T cells.