Nobel Prize 2025 for the Immune System
Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their groundbreaking discovery of how the immune system learns to tolerate the body’s own cells. This achievement opens new avenues for the treatment of autoimmune diseases.
The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm honored the three for their fundamental work on “peripheral immune tolerance.” Their research identified a special type of cell, the regulatory T cell, that acts as the immune system’s internal defense force, preventing it from attacking the very body it is designed to protect.
The Body’s Internal Dilemma
Our immune system is a sophisticated defense mechanism, constantly fighting invading microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses. A crucial part of this defense is carried out by T cells. Some T cells, called “killer T cells,” work to destroy invaders, while “helper T cells” coordinate the alarm.
For this system to function, it must solve a crucial puzzle: how to distinguish between external threats and the body’s own healthy cells. When this self-recognition fails, the immune system attacks itself, leading to autoimmune diseases. For years, scientists believed that the thymus, an organ located behind the sternum, was solely responsible for this training. It was believed that the thymus screens T cells and destroys any that attack the body’s own tissues before they are released into the bloodstream. However, the full picture was more complex, and this year’s Nobel Prize winners filled in the gaps.
Significant Discoveries by the Laureates
The journey of this discovery began in the mid-1990s with the work of Shimon Sakaguchi of Japan. He challenged conventional wisdom by proposing that a specific subset of T cells actively suppresses aggressive immune responses. Through experiments on mice, he identified these “protective guards,” now called regulatory T cells (Tregs), which calm other T cells that might mistakenly attack the body’s own tissues. Although his initial findings were instructive, they did not attract widespread attention at the time.
Years later, working independently in the US, Mary E. Brunko and Fred Ramsdell made a significant breakthrough. Studying sick mice, they identified a specific gene, FOXP3, as the main controller of these regulatory T cells. Their research proved a missing chapter in Sakaguchi’s earlier work, providing a genetic basis for the function of these crucial cells. This discovery unified their research efforts and laid the foundation for a new field of immunology.
Why their work is important
The identification of regulatory T cells and the FOXP3 gene is a significant step forward in medicine. This understanding has profound implications for:
* Autoimmune diseases: Conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, and lupus occur when the immune system attacks the body. By understanding how Tregs work, scientists can develop new therapies to boost their function and restore balance, effectively “retraining” the immune system.
* Organ transplantation: The immune system’s natural tendency to attack foreign tissues is a major obstacle in organ and stem cell transplantation. Harnessing the power of regulatory T cells could lead to new ways to prevent rejection of transplanted organs, allowing the body to tolerate them without the need for harsh, body-wide immunosuppressive drugs.
In short, the work of Brunko, Ramsdell, and Sakaguchi has unveiled the immune system’s elegant solution to self-control, providing a roadmap for developing smarter, more targeted therapies for some of humanity’s most challenging diseases.
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Source: Indian Express