三名科学家因发现调节性T细胞获2025年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖
2025年10月6日，瑞典斯德哥尔摩，卡罗林斯卡学院诺贝尔大会宣布，将2025年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖授予 Mary E. Brunkow、Fred Ramsdell 与坂口志文（Shimon Sakaguchi），表彰他们关于外周免疫耐受的发现。
三人发现了免疫系统的守卫细胞，也就是调节性T细胞。这类细胞监视其他免疫细胞，防止免疫系统攻击人体自身的组织。诺贝尔委员会主席 Olle Kämpe 说，三人的发现对理解免疫系统如何运作、以及为什么不是人人都会患上严重的自身免疫病，具有决定性意义。
坂口志文在1995年作出第一个关键发现。当时多数研究者认为，免疫耐受只来自胸腺中清除掉有潜在危害的免疫细胞这一种机制，也就是中枢耐受。坂口志文证明免疫系统比这复杂得多，他发现了一类此前不为人知的免疫细胞，能保护人体免于自身免疫病，这类细胞后来被命名为调节性T细胞。
Brunkow 与 Ramsdell 在2001年作出另一个关键发现。他们研究一株特别容易患自身免疫病的小鼠，发现这株小鼠的一个基因发生了突变，他们把这个基因命名为 Foxp3，并证明这个基因在人体中的对应基因发生突变，会引发一种严重的自身免疫病 IPEX。两年后，坂口志文把两条线索接了起来，证明 Foxp3 基因正是调控调节性T细胞发育的基因。
诺贝尔大会说，三人的发现开创了外周免疫耐受这一研究领域，推动了癌症与自身免疫病新疗法的开发，也可能让器官移植更容易成功，其中几项疗法已在进行临床试验。Brunkow 任职于美国华盛顿州西雅图的系统生物学研究所，Ramsdell 任职于加州旧金山的 Sonoma Biotherapeutics 公司，坂口志文是日本大阪大学的特聘教授。三人将平分1,100万瑞典克朗奖金。
关联：委内瑞拉反对派领袖 Machado 获2025年诺贝尔和平奖
（来源：卡罗林斯卡学院诺贝尔大会）
Three Scientists Win the 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovering the Immune System's Guard Cells
On October 6, 2025, in Stockholm, Sweden, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced that the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi, for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.
The three identified the immune system's security guards, regulatory T cells, which monitor other immune cells and prevent the immune system from attacking the body's own tissues. Olle Kämpe, chair of the Nobel Committee, said their discoveries have been decisive for understanding how the immune system functions and why we do not all develop serious autoimmune diseases.
Sakaguchi made the first key discovery in 1995. At the time, many researchers were convinced that immune tolerance developed only because potentially harmful immune cells were eliminated in the thymus, a process called central tolerance. Sakaguchi showed the immune system is more complex and discovered a previously unknown class of immune cells that protect the body from autoimmune diseases, cells now known as regulatory T cells.
Brunkow and Ramsdell made the other key discovery in 2001. Working with a mouse strain that was particularly vulnerable to autoimmune diseases, they found the mice had a mutation in a gene they named Foxp3, and showed that mutations in the human equivalent of the gene cause a serious autoimmune disease, IPEX. Two years later, Sakaguchi linked the two lines of work, proving that the Foxp3 gene governs the development of regulatory T cells.
The Nobel Assembly said the laureates' discoveries launched the field of peripheral tolerance, spurring the development of medical treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases and potentially more successful transplantations, with several treatments now in clinical trials. Brunkow is at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Washington, Ramsdell is a scientific adviser at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, California, and Sakaguchi is a distinguished professor at Osaka University in Japan. The three will share the prize of 11 million Swedish kronor equally.
Related: Venezuelan Opposition Leader Machado Wins the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize
(Source: The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet)
来源：卡罗林斯卡学院诺贝尔大会
发布：GSM·美国（发布链接）
图片来源：图：坂口志文资料照片。CC BY 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Shimon Sakaguchi in a file photo. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
GSM Global · 本篇英文版 English edition of this story
- 2025-10-06 18:34三名科学家因发现调节性T细胞获2025年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖本篇
- 2025-10-08 18:34三名科学家因开发金属有机框架获2025年诺贝尔化学奖
- 2025-10-10 17:43委内瑞拉反对派领袖 Machado 获2025年诺贝尔和平奖
