Overview

• The laureates are recognized for identifying regulatory T cells that restrain immune responses, establishing a new field and informing therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases.
• Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell pinpointed Foxp3 mutations as the cause of dysregulated immunity in mice and linked the gene to the human autoimmune disorder IPEX.
• Shimon Sakaguchi first described a previously unrecognized class of immune cells in 1995 and later connected their development to Foxp3.
• Fred Ramsdell was initially unreachable because he was off-grid on a hiking trip, but his company later confirmed he was contacted and began returning home.
• The Nobel committee also had difficulty reaching Brunkow due to the West Coast time difference; Brunkow is at the Institute for Systems Biology, Ramsdell at Sonoma Biotherapeutics, and Sakaguchi at Osaka University, and the prize totals 11 million Swedish kronor.