Nobel Prize in Medicine Honors Pioneers of Immune Tolerance, Regulatory T Cells

Overview

• The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska on October 6 named Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi co-laureates for work that keeps the immune system from attacking the body.
• Sakaguchi identified regulatory T cells in 1995; Brunkow and Ramsdell linked FOXP3 mutations to the human IPEX syndrome in 2001; in 2003 FOXP3 was shown to control Treg development.
• The research clarified how self-tolerance is enforced beyond the thymus and underpins strategies to boost or engineer Tregs for autoimmunity and transplants or to deplete tumor‑associated Tregs in cancer.
• The Nobel Committee highlighted that multiple approaches based on this biology are in human studies, with reporting citing more than 200 clinical trials underway.
• The three winners will share 11 million Swedish kronor, with the award ceremony scheduled for December 10 in Stockholm.