This Washington state scientist just won a Nobel Prize. Here's what it's for

SEATTLE — On Monday, a Seattle scientist, Mary Brunkow, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Her work, alongside two other scientists, led to a new branch of immunology research that has already led to new developments in treatment for cancers and autoimmune diseases.

Brunkow, who is a senior program manager at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, shares the prize with Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi. The three are credited with discovering peripheral immune tolerance, which describes how the immune system attacks pathogens, without attacking the body’s own cells.

In the ‘90s, Sakaguchi discovered what are called regulatory T cells, what the Nobel Committee called “the immune system’s security guards,” which protect the body from autoimmune diseases. These c