Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine, is a visiting professor at the IMMUNOCAPs project that profiles research at the University of Turku. The news of Sakaguchi’s award was celebrated at Turku.

Professor Shimon Sakaguchi works at the University of Osaka in Japan.He studies the molecular mechanisms involved in the regulation of the immune system. His research has focused in particular on the development and maintenance of regulatory T cells and their role in immune-mediated diseases.

He is currently investigating how human regulatory T cells can be manipulated to control a variety of physiological and pathological immune responses. For this purpose, Sakaguchi has also set up a company to develop treatments based on regulatory T cells for immune-mediated diseases.

Sakaguchi has close links with the University of Turku, where he last visited in May 2025.

“I am very happy for Professor Sakaguchi. His pioneering work has been insightful, persistent, and has enabled the development of new immunological therapies,” says Professor Riitta Lahesmaa, Director of the IMMUNOCAPs project.

In addition to Sakaguchi, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell from the United States. They have all been studying how to control the harmful cells that cause autoimmune diseases.

“Their discoveries have laid the foundation for a new field of research and spurred the development of new treatments, for example for cancer and autoimmune diseases,” is stated in the award justifications.

The IMMUNOCAPs (Capitalising Immunity to Combat Disease) project led by Lahesmaa focuses on studying the immune system. The aim is to develop new methods to diagnose and treat immune-mediated diseases. IMMUNOCAPs is part of the InFLAMES research flagship and is also part of the University’s health, diagnostics and drug development multidisciplinary research theme.

The winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine were announced by the Karolinska Institutet on Monday afternoon.

Read the press release on the Nobel Prizes