, Oct. 8 -- Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Dr. Shimon Sakaguchi - have jointly won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries that explain how the human immune system distinguishes between harmful germs and the body's own cells.

Their work uncovered a crucial biological mechanism known as peripheral immune tolerance, which helps prevent the immune system from attacking healthy tissues. The discovery has been hailed as a cornerstone in understanding autoimmune diseases such as Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus.

Brunkow and Ramsdell, both from the United States, and Sakaguchi from Japan, conducted independent but complementary research that identified the importance of regulatory T cells, or T-regs....