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Brunkow, Ramsdell and Sakaguchi Win 2025 Nobel in Medicine for Peripheral Immune Tolerance Discoveries

Their findings on regulatory T cells and the Foxp3 gene reshaped immunology and are driving therapies now in clinical testing.

The Nobel Prize in Medicine Goes to 3 Scientists for Work on the Human Immune System
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The portraits of Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi are displayed on a screen during a press conference where the winners of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine are announced at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, on Oct. 6, 2025.

Overview

  • The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet named the three scientists as this year’s laureates on October 6 in Stockholm, with 11 million Swedish kronor to be shared.
  • Shimon Sakaguchi identified regulatory T cells in 1995, challenging the view that immune tolerance arose solely in the thymus.
  • In 2001, Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell traced severe autoimmunity in a mouse strain to mutations in Foxp3 and connected the gene to a rare human disorder, IPEX.
  • By 2003, Sakaguchi demonstrated that Foxp3 controls the development of regulatory T cells, unifying the discoveries into a mechanism that prevents self-attack.
  • The committee said the work launched the field of peripheral tolerance and spurred treatments for autoimmune disease, cancer and transplantation now in clinical trials, with medals to be presented on December 10.