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Nobel Prize in Medicine
We, the board of the Dutch Society for Immunology (NVvI-DSI), are immensely proud of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to three distinguished immunologists: Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi. They have received this highly prestigious honor for their groundbreaking discovery of the mechanisms that regulate the immune system and prevent it from attacking the body itself.
In 1995, Shimon Sakaguchi identified a critical subset of T cells with immune regulatory functions. About fifteen years later, in 2001, Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell demonstrated that the gene Forkhead box P3 (Foxp3) plays a vital role in preventing immune dysregulation, both in scurfy mice and in patients with IPEX syndrome. Together, these key discoveries led to the definition of the now well-known Foxp3+ regulatory T cell lineage.
Understanding the induction and function of regulatory T cells opens new possibilities for developing innovative therapies for autoimmune diseases, allergies, and cancer. These advances are based on fundamental immunological research.
