Newly-minted Nobel laureate Fred Ramsdell joins Claudia to discuss his groundbreaking work on regulatory T cells, which act as the immune system's natural "brakes." His research aims to "reset" the immune system to cure autoimmune diseases (like rheumatoid arthritis and MS) moving beyond mere symptom management. Fred reflects on his new role as a science advocate, addressing the crisis of public trust in science and the need for greater diversity in biomedical research.

During this conversation, recorded at the UC Berkeley/JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in Taipei, Claudia and Fred discuss:

1. How Fred missed the Nobel Prize call while off-grid camping
2. His shifting goals in retirement post Nobel win
3. Why he chose biotech: collaboration, speed, and being "wrong fast"
4. The deeper threat to science: funding vs. trust, and his surprise in Sweden

Fred says he’s excited to see what other advances are possible in what he calls “the early innings” of scientific discovery:

“As humans, we're really good at solving technological problems. If we know what the problem is, historically, we're pretty good at figuring out an answer. [We’re] pretty confident now that we know the problem in peripheral tolerance, that is the breakdown of our immune system recognizing our own tissues. Now we know what at least part of that problem is, we'll be able to engineer our way into a solution.”

Relevant Links

See more about Fred’s Nobel win and read the UCLA press release

Fred’s Nobel prize lecture

See Fred and his co-laureates accept their prize

Read more about Fred’s 2025 co-laureates Mary E. Brunkow and Shimon Sakaguchi

About Our Guest

Fred Ramsdell, PhD, is a veteran biotechnology leader in immunology with nearly three decades of experience and was named a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. A co-founder of Sonoma Biotherapeutics, Dr. Ramsdell was the former Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) and current Scientific Advisory Board Chair of the Company.

Dr. Ramsdell earned his doctoral degree in microbiology and immunology from the University of California, Los Angeles and holds a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and cell biology from the University of California, San Diego. Following a fellowship at the NIH, Dr. Ramsdell joined Immunex studying T cell activation and tolerance, with a focus on gene discovery and functional characterization. He later joined Darwin Molecular (which was later acquired by Celltech R&D) to establish the immunology program. Amongst other programs, he led the team that discovered and characterized FoxP3, a gene critical to the function of regulatory T cells. Dr. Ramsdell joined ZymoGenetics in 2004, where he led teams studying novel proteins with potential regulatory activity in lymphoid cells. In 2008, Novo Nordisk brought on Dr. Ramsdell to help establish the company’s new Inflammation Research Center in Seattle and lead the Immunobiology group. Prior to SonomaBio, Dr. Ramsdell was the CSO at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) where he helped to build and advance multiple research programs from the inception of the Institute.

Source

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