Topic: Nobel Prize 2025

Omar M. Yaghi examines how reticular chemistry changes the scale and diversity of materials that chemists can design. By joining molecular building blocks into extended structures, researchers have developed large families of metal–organic frameworks and covalent organic frameworks with tunable internal spaces and functions. The lecture asks how artificial intelligence and robotics could accelerate the preparation and exploration of these materials, moving chemical discovery from scarcity toward abundance. Yaghi connects this approach to carbon capture and the collection of water from air, bu

Michel Devoret retraces the experimental discovery of macroscopic quantum tunnelling and quantised energy levels in superconducting electrical circuits. The lecture explains how Josephson circuits became controllable quantum systems and how these experiments opened a route from observing quantum behaviour in a macroscopic device to engineering artificial atoms. He connects this foundational work, recognised by the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics shared with John Clarke and John Martinis, to the development of superconducting qubits and present approaches to quantum computing. The account links th

Fred Ramsdell traces the discovery of FOXP3 from the striking immune phenotype of the scurfy mouse to the mapping and cloning of the responsible gene. He explains how linking a disease phenotype to its genetic cause opened a route to understanding the regulation of immune responses and the biology of regulatory T cells. The lecture considers FOXP3 as a regulator of immune function and the implications of this history for therapeutic intervention. It argues for the continuing value of phenotype-first research and naturally occurring disease mutations in discovering biological mechanisms and id

Alexander Rudensky examines why an immune system capable of amplifying responses to pathogens also needs a dedicated mechanism of restraint. He connects the activity of effector CD4 T cells to the emergence of regulatory T cells and explores how loss of this regulatory population accounts for the severe disease associated with FOXP3 deficiency. The lecture follows genetic experiments that test the continuing requirement for regulatory T cells and trace the stability of their lineage. It also considers regulatory T cells generated outside the thymus, their relationship with commensal microorga

Shimon Sakaguchi explains how regulatory T cells restrain immune responses and maintain tolerance to the body’s own tissues. He follows experimental evidence linking the removal of particular CD4 T-cell populations to autoimmune disease and the restoration of regulation to protection against excessive immune activity. The lecture connects these mouse experiments with human immune dysregulation, including IPEX, and with the role of FOXP3 in regulatory T-cell biology. It develops the idea that active cellular suppression is a continuing requirement for immune balance, with implications for unde