A researcher based in San Francisco is one of three people who share this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine, for their work on the study of the body's immune responses and autoimmune diseases.
Dr. Fred Ramsdell, PhD, an adviser for Sonoma Biotherapeutics in South San Francisco, shares this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine with Dr. Mary Brunkow, based in Seattle, and Shimon Sakaguchi, MD, PhD, of Japan. The more recent work of Ramsdell and Brunkow is preceded by research into a specific population of T-cells by Dr. Sakaguchi, which was published in 1995, as Fierce Biotech explains.
The three will share the $1.1 million in prize money.
Specifically, the trio's work relates to the field of peripheral immune tolerance, which is process through which the body avoids having its healthy cells attacked by its own immune system. Peripheral immune tolerance is what prevents the body from growing cancers, and from developing autoimmune diseases.
"Their discoveries have been decisive for our understanding of how the immune system functions and why we do not all develop serious autoimmune diseases,” said Olle Kämpe, chair of the Nobel Committee, in a statement.
The SF Business Times reports that Ramsdell co-founded Sonoma Biotherapeutics in 2019, and remains an advisor at the company.
The Nobel committee said they were initially only able to reach Sakaguchi by phone early Monday, but later spoke to Brunkow.
Brunkow says she ignored the early morning phone call from Sweden today, assuming it was a spam call. "My phone rang, and I saw a number from Sweden and thought, well that’s just spam of some sort, so I disabled the phone and went back to sleep," Brunkow tells the Nobel committee.
Brunkow says that the enigma of the immune system requires a team effort when it comes to research. "It takes a bunch of different brains, all working on it together, for sure," she tells the committee.
She also adds, "It was an amazing team effort back when we did the work. My career in science has changed quite a bit since that work was done... I have been following what is happening in medicine and how that discovery could have helped in some small way."
The work Brunkow refers to had to do with a gene called Foxp3, and how a tiny mutation on that gene — observed first in mice — can lead to a rare autoimmune condition in children called IPEX syndrome.
Update: The Nobel committee finally reached Dr. Ramsdell about 20 hours after they initially tried. The new Nobel laureate was off the grid on a hiking trip in the Rocky Mountains with his wife and two dogs, and he tells the New York Times, "I was just grateful and humbled by getting the award, super happy for the recognition of the work in general and just looking forward to sharing this with my colleagues, as well."
The Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and literature will all be announced in the next three days, in that order, with the Nobel Peace Prize awarded on Friday.
Top image: Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images
