[HN Gopher] Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025
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       Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025
        
       Author : lode
       Score  : 318 points
       Date   : 2025-10-06 09:41 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nobelprize.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nobelprize.org)
        
       | A_D_E_P_T wrote:
       | It's a win for nominative determinism. The name Shimon, in
       | Japanese, directly translates to something like "Determined
       | Scholar."
       | 
       | It's also a fairly weird and old fashioned name. The sort of
       | thing that would have been in style 120 years ago. (Meiji and
       | early Taisho era.) Japanese names today are usually less literal.
        
         | coef2 wrote:
         | His name could be interpreted as "aspiring to be a scholar". I
         | guess he's done an exceptional job living up to it.
        
       | matsemann wrote:
       | I love how Nobel Prize always have a "popular information" with
       | nice layman description of what was discovered and why it was
       | important. From the sidebar:
       | https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2025/popular-info...
        
         | NeutralForest wrote:
         | There's usually two pieces, a short one that can be taken as is
         | for the general press and another which goes more in depth at a
         | university level I would say.
        
           | haunter wrote:
           | There are actually three
           | 
           | The press release
           | https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2025/press-
           | releas...
           | 
           | The popular science article
           | https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2025/popular-
           | info...
           | 
           | And an advanced scientific paper usually written by the
           | members of the commitee
           | https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2025/10/advanced-
           | medicine...
        
             | NeutralForest wrote:
             | Indeed!
        
             | falcor84 wrote:
             | And then later on there's of course the recipient's Nobel
             | lecture, most of which are fantastic.
        
       | haunter wrote:
       | Ah it's the Nobel Prize week! If anyone curious about this week's
       | schedule:
       | 
       | Tuesday: physics. Wednesday: chemistry. Thursday: literature.
       | Friday: peace. Monday: economics.
        
         | Keyframe wrote:
         | obligatory comment about how economics one isn't a Nobel prize.
        
           | alkonaut wrote:
           | Next Monday also isn't in this week so it all works out.
        
           | echelon wrote:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Econom.
           | ..
           | 
           | > Although the Prize in Economic Sciences was not one of the
           | original five Nobel Prizes established by Alfred Nobel's
           | will, it is considered a member of the Nobel Prize system,
           | and is administered and referred to along with the Nobel
           | Prizes by the Nobel Foundation. Winners of the Prize in
           | Economic Sciences are chosen in a similar manner to and
           | announced alongside the Nobel Prize recipients, and receive
           | the Prize in Economic Sciences at the Nobel Prize Award
           | Ceremony.
        
           | l5870uoo9y wrote:
           | I think it's more the Nobel Peace Prize that stands out.
        
             | mlyle wrote:
             | The peace prize stands out for being different.
             | 
             | The economics one stands out for not being endowed by Nobel
             | but instead Sveriges Riksbank well after his death (thus
             | it's the Nobel _Memorial_ Prize in Economic Sciences).
             | 
             | But it's administered by the Nobel Foundation, etc.
        
               | marbro wrote:
               | The Peace Prize stands out because sometimes it is given
               | to someone who wages war such as Henry Kissinger or
               | Barack Obama.
        
               | vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
               | Giving the prize to Obama, whose main achievement at the
               | time was not to be Bush, was a disgrace and did huge
               | damage to the image of the committee. And he did nothing
               | after that that would have deserved a prize.
        
               | astrange wrote:
               | Bush's PEPFAR was so good that if they gave him the prize
               | it'd be more deserved than many other people who have it.
        
         | tombert wrote:
         | It still kind of baffles me that there's no Nobel prize for
         | mathematics.
         | 
         | I know there are plenty of other math awards out there, so it's
         | not really "worse" or anything, I have always just thought it
         | was a weird omission.
        
       | slider22 wrote:
       | In the past here on HN, someone spoke of a set of books that were
       | an incredible resource on the body's immune response. Does anyone
       | know which books those were? I'm assuming they will get an update
       | to include info on T-reg.
        
         | fabian2k wrote:
         | These discoveries are old enough to be in the textbooks
         | already.
         | 
         | Not sure what would be good popular science books. There is
         | quite a lot on the immune system in the Alberts (Molecular
         | Biology of the Cell), but that is maybe too much without solid
         | biology background knowledge. The typical textbook is the
         | Janeway (Immunology), but that's certainly too much.
         | 
         | What I liked as an introductory textbook in general was
         | Campbell Biology, but that covers essentially all of Biology.
         | There is a chapter on the immune system as well.
         | 
         | All those books are horribly expensive in the US, and still
         | quite expensive in other countries, though.
        
         | jsenn wrote:
         | I don't know the post you're referring to but I highly
         | recommend How the Immune System Works by Lauren Sompayrac. It
         | explains the interesting parts without getting bogged down in
         | the details of every signalling pathway, but without dumbing
         | things down too much.
        
         | blackbear_ wrote:
         | As a general introduction I quite like this one: https://shop-
         | us.kurzgesagt.org/products/immune-a-journey-int...
        
         | smath wrote:
         | "How the immune system works", Lauren Sompayrac
        
         | davikr wrote:
         | I'd use Abbas' Immunology as a standard textbook and
         | Sompayrac's How The Immune System Works as a more
         | straightforward, lean book on the immune system.
        
       | marcelotournier wrote:
       | First pattern that comes into mind after reading about a gene
       | called "Foxp3" and immune targets:
       | 
       | Man frantically shakes whole body, then raises dramatically his
       | fist and screams: - FOX...
        
         | aspenmayer wrote:
         | Metal Gear..?
         | 
         | https://breezewiki.com/metalgear/wiki/FOXDIE
         | 
         | > FOXDIE (originally rendered as FoxDie) was an engineered
         | retrovirus developed by the DIA for the Pentagon. It was
         | programmed to kill specific people by recognizing a person's
         | DNA, causing cardiac arrest.
        
         | astrange wrote:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_hedgehog_protein
         | 
         | But:
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_hedgehog_protein#Former_...
        
       | jelsisi wrote:
       | Very excited to live in a timeline where autoimmune diseases
       | could be cured. 40 people are already in remission from Lupus in
       | a trial conducted last year.
        
       | osnium123 wrote:
       | It's interesting that two of the two American recipients weren't
       | recognized by other awards like membership in the National
       | Academy of Sciences or the National Academy of Medicine. Truly
       | black horse candidates which makes this fun.
        
       | dangle1 wrote:
       | Funny anecdote that Dr. Brunkow thought she was being spammed
       | when the Nobel Committee tried to inform her:
       | 
       | >Brunkow, meanwhile, got the news of her prize from an AP
       | photographer who came to her Seattle home in the early hours of
       | the morning. She said she had ignored the earlier call from the
       | Nobel Committee. "My phone rang and I saw a number from Sweden
       | and thought: 'That's just, that's spam of some sort.'"
       | 
       | https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2025/10/sc...
        
         | tombert wrote:
         | I can't say I would react too differently. There are so many
         | emails or phone calls claiming you've won a big award or sum of
         | money that end up being scams.
        
         | pdxandi wrote:
         | Am I understanding correctly that this Nobel prize is for work
         | that was completed over 20 years ago? I'm not a biologist but
         | it sounds like they discovered regulatory T cells together,
         | which sounds relatively major. Is it typical for a Nobel prize
         | to lag that kind of discovery for decades? Or is it only now
         | that we understand how major the discovery was? Or maybe I'm
         | just misunderstanding the discovery and the timeline.
        
           | osnium123 wrote:
           | Yes, many Nobel prizes are awarded for work that was
           | completed decades ago in part to ensure that the work passes
           | the test of time.
        
           | serioussecurity wrote:
           | Highs had a delay of 49 years from paper to prize, though he
           | got the prize the year after his theory was experimentally
           | confirmed.
        
         | tverbeure wrote:
         | Meanwhile, Fred Ramsdell probably still doesn't know he's won
         | it because he's backpacking in Idaho.
         | 
         | He'll be in for a surprise when he switches his phone back on.
        
           | SkinTaco wrote:
           | That's Idaho, USA for anyone who lives in one of the 194
           | other countries in the world (yes we do exist!)
        
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