The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to three scientists – Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi on Monday. The trio will share the honour for breakthroughs in peripheral immune tolerance. The announcement was made on Monday by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.

2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.”

The trio, two based in the United States and one in Japan, was recognised for their “groundbreaking discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance,” which prevents the immune system from harming the body.

This critical biological process helps the immune system distinguish between harmful invaders and the body’s own tissues, preventing autoimmune diseases. Their research has paved the way for advances in treating conditions such as multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, and other immune-related disorders.
Born in 1961 has a Ph.D. from Princeton University in the US. She is a senior Program Manager at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle.

Fred Ramsdell, born 1960, has a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles and is a scientific Advisor, Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco. While Shimon Sakaguchi, born 1951 has a MD and Ph.D from Kyoto University in Japan. She is a Distinguished Professor at the Immunology Frontier Research Center, Osaka University, in Japan.

Prize amount: 11 million Swedish kronor, to be shared equally between the laureates, the Nobel Com.
Officially known as the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the honour has been awarded 115 times to 229 Nobel Prize laureates between 1901 and 2024.

Last year’s prize went to American scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, for their discovery of microRNA, tiny bits of genetic material that serve as on and off switches inside cells that help control what the cells do and when they do it.

The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics next Monday. The award ceremony will be held on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, a wealthy Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite, who founded the prizes. He died in 1896.