2025-10-13
8 分钟Happy Monday, listeners. For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman.
You're listening to our weekly science news roundup.
First, let's take a quick tour through last week's Nobel Prize winners.
Last Monday, the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Mary E. Brunko,
Fred Ramsdale,
and Shimon Sakaguchi for discovering how the body stops the immune system from attacking itself.
The immune system normally fights off infections and diseases,
but in conditions like rheumatoid arthritis or type 1 diabetes,
it mistakenly targets the body's own tissues.
The Laureates research focuses on the type of so-called T cells that act as internal regulators,
keeping this friendly fire in check.
During the 1990s,
Sakaguchi found that mouse immune cells bearing a particular protein marker were essential
for preventing self-attack.
Eliminating these cells led to widespread tissue damage.
Several years later,
Bronco and Ramsdell identified the genetic switch behind these regulatory cells
while studying mice with severe autoimmune disorders.
Their findings have inspired more than 200 clinical trials exploring therapies that include new ways to treat autoimmune conditions and improve organ transplant success.
Rather delightfully,