The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi for elucidating the mechanisms underlying peripheral immune tolerance—the system that enables the body to prevent immune cells from attacking its own tissues. This groundbreaking discovery opens new perspectives in the treatment of autoimmune diseases and cancer.
During the 1990s and 2000s, the three researchers who received the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine reconstructed different yet complementary parts of this process.
Shimon Sakaguchi was among the first to identify and characterize regulatory T cells (Tregs), discovering their key role in suppressing immune responses directed against self. Subsequently, Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell linked mutations in the FOXP3 gene to severe autoimmune syndromes, demonstrating that this gene is essential for the development and function of regulatory T cells.
Regulatory T cells monitor other immune cells and prevent other T cells from mistakenly attacking the body’s tissues. They are fundamental to so-called peripheral immune tolerance, as they ensure that the immune system does not overreact after eliminating a pathogen.
Today, regulatory T cells are considered both a therapeutic target and a therapeutic tool, and understanding the role of FOXP3 has opened new strategies to restore immune tolerance. In cancer, an excess of Tregs can protect tumor cells from the body’s defenses—hence research aims to reduce their activity. In autoimmune diseases, by contrast, the goal is to enhance their function in order to restore balance within the immune system.
We are deeply inspired by these major advances, which mark a decisive step forward for medicine and open new therapeutic perspectives for the medicine of the future.
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