UW 151st commencement speaker Mary Brunkow’s journey to becoming a Nobel Prize Laureate

Mary E. Brunkow
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Who is this?
Mary Elizabeth Brunkow (born 1961) is an American molecular biologist, immunologist and Nobel Prize laureate. She is known for co-identifying the gene later named FOXP3 as the cause of the scurfy mouse phenotype, a finding that became foundational for modern regulatory T cell biology. In 2025, she was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi for their work in peripheral immune tolerance.
What happened recently
Photos show Mary E. Brunkow waking up to the news she is a Nobel winner in medicine
Three scientists — 2 Americans, 1 Japanese — take home Nobel Prize in medicine for work on human immune system
Nobel Prize medicine winners 2025: Who are Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi?
The Nobel Prize in medicine goes to 3 scientists for key immune system discoveries
Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Dr. Shimon Sakaguchi won the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday