This year's Nobel Prize in Medicine winner does not know he has won because he is hiking and has no connection

The Nobel Prize committee has been unable to contact one of this year's medical laureates, who friends say who is “living his best life” on an “off the grid” hiking foray, writes The Guardian.

Fred Ramsdell shared the award with Mary Brunkow of Seattle, Washington, and Shimon Sakaguchi of Osaka University in Japan, for discoveries that have changed the way the immune system works.

Ramsdell himself, however, does not yet know that he has become a Nobel laureate. His colleague and co-founder of the laboratory, Jeffrey Bluestone, told AFP that he also tried unsuccessfully to contact him

"I have been trying to get a hold of him myself. I think he may be backpacking in the backcountry in Idaho," Bluestone said.

The committee also had difficulties with the second laureate, Mary Brunkow. Both scientists work on the West Coast of the United States, which is nine hours behind Stockholm. But in the end, Brunkow managed to get the good news.

"I asked them to, if they have a chance, call me back," Nobel Secretary General Thomas Perlmann said at a press conference, announcing the winners.

This is not the first time the committee has been unable to reach the winners immediately. In 2020, a similar situation happened with the winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Then Bob Wilson woke up to a call in the middle of the night at Stanford and simply unplugged the phone, so the organizers called his wife. And when they couldn't reach his fellow winner, Paul Milgrom, either, Wilson had to go and wake him up. A video surveillance camera at the door recorded Milgrom hearing the news and saying in confusion: "Yeah I have? Wow."

This year's Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Shimon Sakaguchi (Japan) and American researchers Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell. Their discovery changed the way humanity understands the immune system: scientists explained why the immune system sometimes attacks its own body and sometimes holds back.

The laureates described regulatory T-lymphocytes (Tregs), the body's "guardians" that restrain aggressive immune reactions. These cells help to avoid serious autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, or rheumatoid arthritis.

3D illustration of the immune system. Photo: Depositphotos

"We now have a better understanding of why the immune system sometimes does not attack its own tissues," said Olle Kempe, chairman of the Nobel Committee.

This discovery has already become the basis for new immunotherapies and has given a powerful impetus to medicine, opening up pathways to treating cancer and autoimmune disorders.

This year's prize is worth SEK 11 million (approximately EUR 1 million) and will be divided evenly among the three winners. The day the Nobel Prize was created is November 27, 1895, when Alfred Nobel made his will. This is how one of the most prestigious awards in the world, the Nobel Prize, was created. Interesting facts about the historical event.

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