- Born:
- January 19, 1951, Nagahama, Japan (age 75)
- Awards And Honors:
- Nobel Prize (2025)
- Subjects Of Study:
- T cell
- immune system
- regulatory T cell
Shimon Sakaguchi
Shimon Sakaguchi (born January 19, 1951, Nagahama, Japan) is a Japanese immunologist who was awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on the immune system. He shared the prize with American biologists Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell.
Sakaguchi received a medical degree in 1976 from Kyōto University and a doctorate from the same institution in 1982. When he received the Nobel Prize, he was a professor of immunology at the University of Ōsaka.
In the 1980s and ’90s, Sakaguchi discovered regulatory T cells, which control immune reactions and keep other T cells from attacking the body’s own cells. He and others later followed on the work of Brunkow and Ramsdell to identify the gene that controlled the development of regulatory T cells.
