BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2025 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth” with one half to Mokyr “for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress” and the other half jointly to Aghion and Howitt “for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction.”
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Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi have been awarded the 2025 #NobelPrize in Chemistry for the development of a new type of molecular architecture.
In 1989, chemistry laureate Richard Robson tested utilising the inherent properties of atoms in a new way. He combined positively charged copper ions with a four-armed molecule; this had a chemical group that was attracted to copper ions at the end of each arm.
When they were combined, they bonded to form a well-ordered, spacious crystal. It was like a diamond filled with innumerable cavities.
A quantum mechanical system behind a barrier can have varying amounts of energy, but it can only absorb or emit specific amounts of this energy. The system is quantised. Tunnelling occurs more easily at a higher energy level than at a lower one so, statistically, a system with more energy is held captive for less time than one with less energy.
This year’s #NobelPrize laureates in physics conducted experiments with an electrical circuit in which they demonstrated both quantum mechanical tunnelling and quantised energy levels in a system big enough to be held in the hand.
BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2025 #NobelPrize in Physics to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.”
“I believe this will encourage immunologists and physicians to apply T regulatory cells to treat various immunological diseases.”
This year’s Nobel Prize laureate, Shimon Sakaguchi, discovered a new class of T cells that protect the body from autoimmune diseases.
Just after the prize announcement we spoke to him about the fundamental research question that kept him dedicated to the field long after many others gave up.
Listen to our interview with the happy and surprised laureate:
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Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell – who have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine – gained decisive insights into how autoimmune diseases arise.
Brunkow and Ramsdell made a key discovery in 2001, when they presented the explanation for why a specific mouse strain (named scurfy) was particularly vulnerable to autoimmune diseases.
The medicine laureates had discovered that the mice have a mutation in a gene that they named Foxp3. They also showed that mutations in the human equivalent of this gene cause a serious autoimmune disease, IPEX.
The 2025 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.”
Our immune system is an evolutionary masterpiece. Every day it protects us from the thousands of different viruses, bacteria and other microbes that attempt to invade our bodies. Without a functioning immune system, we would not survive.
One of the immune system’s marvels is its ability to identify pathogens and differentiate them from the body’s own cells. The microbes that threaten our health do not wear a uniform – they all have different appearances. Many have also developed similarities to human cells, as a form of camouflage. So how does the immune system keep track of what to attack and what to protect? Why doesn’t the immune system attack our bodies more frequently?
Researchers long believed they knew the answer to these questions: that immune cells mature through a process called central immune tolerance (see image). However, our immune system turned out to be more complex than they believed. Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.
This year’s medicine laureate Shimon Sakaguchi discovered a new class of T cells.
Sakaguchi was swimming against the tide in 1995, when he made a key discovery. At the time, many researchers were convinced that immune tolerance only developed due to potentially harmful immune cells being eliminated in the thymus, through a process called central tolerance.
Sakaguchi showed that the immune system is more complex and discovered a previously unknown class of immune cells, which protect the body from autoimmune diseases.
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BREAKING NEWS
The 2025 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.”