Why 3 scientists won the Nobel Prize in Medicine! What is the reason?
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3 scientists who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Why was the award given, what did they discover or do?
After the announcement of the Nobel Prize in 2025, it was seen that three scientists were jointly awarded this award. We will take a look at the details of those three below.
Mary E. Brunkow: She is the Senior Program Manager of the Institute for Systems Biology (Seattle), USA
*Reason for receiving the Nobel Prize (Her discovery): Made a fundamental discovery related to peripheral immune tolerance.
- Fred Ramsdell: he is the Scientific Advisor, Sonoma Biotherapeutics, San Francisco, USA.
*Reason for receiving the Nobel Prize (Discovery): Made a fundamental discovery related to peripheral immune tolerance. - Shimon Sakaguchi: he is a Japanese scientist and distinguished professor at Osaka University.
*Reason for receiving the Nobel Prize (Discovery): Made a fundamental discovery related to peripheral immune tolerance.
*What is peripheral immune tolerance?
These three award-winning scientists explain how the human body’s immune system prevents itself from attacking its own organs, tissues, or organs. This fundamental process is called peripheral immune tolerance.
- Shimon Sakaguchi: Let’s learn about his key discovery.
*In the mid-1990s, he discovered a new type of lymphocyte (a type of white blood cell) that can suppress the human body’s immune system.
*Discovery: He named these Regulatory T cells. These cells normally act as security guards within the body’s immune system, monitoring aggressive immune cells and deciding that they should not mistakenly attack other cells in the body.
*Significance: This proves that immune system tolerance does not occur solely by eliminating harmful cells in the body’s thymus (known as central tolerance) but also by an automatic mechanism outside the body.
- Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell’s discovery (The FOXP3 Gene connection)
*Two scientists studied an Indore separately and found severe autoimmune disease in them.
*Discovery: In 2001, they both proved that the cause of autoimmune disease is a mutation in a gene called FOXP3. They found that autoimmune syndrome occurs due to defects in this gene in the human body.
*The role of FOXP3: This discovery shows that the FOXP3 gene is essential for the development of regulatory T cells. - Collective knowledge: Later, Dr. Sakaguchi established through these discoveries that the FOXP3 gene is the main regulator that controls the function of the regulatory T cells he discovered. Through this, the process of peripheral immune tolerance is completely clear.
*How important is this discovery in medicine?
- Autoimmune diseases: This will help develop new therapies to treat and cure diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes.
- Cancer treatment: Scientists are now looking for new ways to suppress regulatory key courses, so that the immune system can better attack and suppress cancer cells.
- Organ transplantation: After organ transplantation, the patient’s body does not reject the transplanted organ. For this, new strategies can be developed to adjust the immune system.
These discoveries by these three scientists can help control the human body’s immune system and improve medical science.
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