Immune System Research Earns Nobel Prize for Brunkow, Ramsdell and Sakaguchi

Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for their discoveries about how the immune system regulates itself. The three researchers split 11 million Swedish kroner ($1.17 million). Their work identified regulatory T cells and the FOXP3 gene that controls them. Dr. Sakaguchi spent more than a decade solving a puzzle about the thymus. He discovered that the immune system has a backup mechanism to stop…