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34 “The therapeutic areas that have seen the most
advancements include autoimmune disease, organ transplantation, and cancer. My strengths and contribution to the work that is being honored is really in the areas of genetics, genomics, and molecular biology. I would never claim to be an immunologist!” became Celltech in 1998. She was a scientist in the molecular biology/genomics group and Fred Ramsdell headed up the company’s immunology section. Their two labs were next to each other. “There was constant interaction between our two groups,” Brunkow says. “Fred has remained a good friend since those days of working together.” D uring their studies, Brunkow and Ramsdell discovered that a certain strain of mice who were affected by profound autoimmune disease carried a mutation in a gene that is now known as FoxP3. They also found that an autoimmune disease in humans was caused by mutations in the human equivalent of FoxP3. Sakaguchi later determined that the FoxP3 gene regulates the development of cells he had identified in 1995. Now called regulatory T cells (Tregs), they are responsible for monitoring other immune cells and ensuring that our immune system tolerates our own tissue. Known as peripheral immune tolerance, understanding how the immune system sorts out threats has led to new treatments, for example in cancer and autoimmune diseases. While Brunkow has not studied peripheral immune tolerance since Celltech closed in 2003-2004, she has followed developments in the field, and the Nobel Prize has prompted her to reflect on the discovery and its clinical applications. “I have become more deeply familiar with just how broad an impact our work has had, with very gratifying major advances made in human treatments based on regulatory T cell biology,” she says. “The therapeutic areas that have seen the most advancements include autoimmune disease, organ transplantation, and cancer. My strengths and contribution to the work that is being honored is really in the areas of genetics, genomics, and molecular biology. I would never claim to be an immunologist!” End goal of translatable discoveries Mary Brunkow started college with the intention to study medicine, majoring in cell and molecular biology, but her focus changed after she took a genetics class in her senior year with a dynamic professor and participated in a student research project in his lab. “I was quickly taken in by the magic of an environment with such intense focus and sense of excitement,” Brunkow says. “It didn’t take long for me to start making plans to pursue graduate school rather than med school.” S ince then her career has shifted between industry and academia, but always with a focus on work that could improve patients’ lives. “When the time came to start thinking about the next step after my postdoc I felt that I would be more satisfied in an environment where my contributions would be directly connected to treating human diseases,” Brunkow explains. The chance to work at the gene discovery-based biotech start-up Darwin Molecular seemed to be the perfect answer. “I was able to pursue early-stage research that was as exciting as anything that I thought I might be doing in academia, but within an environment where everyone shared the common goal of ultimate translation into the clinic.” Since joining ISB in 2009, Brunkow’s work is again more academically focused, but her motivation remains the same. “Throughout my career, whether in academia or industry, THE NOBEL PRIZE // MEDICINE