Nobel laureate met young researchers at Stockholm University

PhD students in chemistry and molecular biosciences at Stockholm University use to invite Nobel laureates to visit the university when they are in Stockholm during the Nobel week. This year was no exception. On 12 December, Fred Ramsdell visited Stockholm University – just two days after he had been at campus for Nobel Night Cap (the official afterparty to the Nobel banquet). Fred Ramsdell is one of this year´s three laureates in physiology or medicine. Together with Mary Brunkow and Shimon Sakaguchi he is awarded the prize for groundbreaking discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance that prevents the immune system from harming the body. 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.

Filled lecture hall at the university

The lecture hall was filled as Fred Ramsdell entered to give the lecture for PhD students and researchers in molecular biology and biochemistry. He started by saying that the prize was awarded for discoveries done 25 years ago. But the story actually started already in the 1940´s in the Oak Ridge Laboratory in the US where researchers studied the consequences of radiation. Their work was part of the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb, where mice were used to study the effects of radiation. The mouse strain that plays a vital role in this year’s Nobel Prize was an evolutionary fluke – some male mice were unexpectedly born with scaley and flaky skin, an extremely enlarged spleen and lymph glands, and they lived for just a few weeks. The mouse strain – which was given the name scurfy – captured the researchers’ attention. They realised that the mutation that caused this disease must be located on the mice’s X chromosome.

In the 1990s researchers began to investigate why the male scurfy mice got so ill. It turned out that their organs were being attacked by T cells that destroyed the tissues. For some reason, the scurfy mutation appeared to cause a rebellion in the immune system. Fred Ramsdell and his colleague Mary Brunkow became interested in the scurfy mutation. They worked at a biotech company that developed pharmaceuticals for autoimmune diseases, and Brunkow and Ramsdell realised that the scurfy mice could provide them with important clues in their work. If they were able to understand the molecular mechanism underlying the mice’s disease, they could gain decisive insights into how autoimmune diseases arise. Hence, they decide to search for the scurfy mice’s mutant gene. In the 1990s, sequencing the genome was like looking for a needle in a gigantic haystack. After three months of hard work they finally find the mutation they searched for (namned FKH).

“It was the last gene we had on our prioritised list – and I had done the list”, Ramsdell told the audience.

Experiments to find out more about the FOXP3 gene

They named the gene FOXP3 and started to do research on how the gene works by a series of genetic experiments in mice. Finally, they were able to prove that the FOXP3 gene was neccescary to avoid the autoimmune phenotype in the scurfy mice. Directly after that, they could also link mutations in the FOXP3 gene to human autoimmunity. The FOXP3 gene was shown to be selectively expressed in regulatory T cells (discovered by this year’s Nobel laureate Shimon Sakaguchi) – T cells that prevent our immune system to overreact and cause harm to self. Ramsdell could also prove that the scurfy mice lacked these cells. Today, several clinicals trials are going on with regulatory T-cells to fight different diseases. The results from the tests are encouraging, according to Ramsdell. In the coming years he believes there will be clear answers on how the gene works in the cells.

At the end of the lecture Ramsdell showed a photo taken of him outside the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm many years ago where a small caravan was parked as part of the museum´s exhibition. He then said “This is the closest I will come to a prize”. But it turned out different...

Questions from PhD students

During the coffee break some of the PhD students started chatting with Fred Ramsdell. Back in the lecture hall there was a Q&A session for PhD students with the Nobel laureate. There was a wide range of questions addressing his current research on T reg based treatments for immune diseases and their future application but also covering career advice and his opinion about the academic research and research possibilities in industry. Fred Ramsdell, wearing the Stockholm University cap he just had received, displayed joy in having a conversation with PhD and undergrad. students. He answered each person´s question.

“Be open to all possibilities”

Reflecting upon the visit, PhD student Ylva Alina Veith from the PhD board noted that on a question about the future in academia and industry for scientist stated that in his opinion both of them are having advantages and disadvantages but they are going hand in hand offering opportunities. Her second reflection is that he actually was joking about the fact that sometimes the things we don't like the most in our research (in his case transcriptions factors) are the things that turn out to be important and move us forward, so be open to all possibilities.

The event was arranged by the PhD board at the Department of Molecular Biosciences, The Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University. The PhD students have invited Nobel laureates to give lectures at least since 2013.

Read more on the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine 2025
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