Discovery Series: Cool Talks in Cool Places

Dr. Mary Brunkow, ISB What if the discovery that unlocked a new era of cancer and autoimmune therapy was sitting quietly in a Bothell biotech — until Stockholm came calling, 25 years later? In the late 1990s, Dr. Mary Brunkow was a scientist at Darwin Molecular Corp., a gene-discovery biotech startup in Bothell, WA, doing the kind of meticulous, foundational work that rarely makes headlines. She and her colleagues identified the FOXP3 gene and helped establish the science of regulatory T cells — discoveries that would ultimately reshape our understanding of how the immune system keeps itself in check. Then the company closed. Life moved on. Dr. Brunkow spent the years since working across the life sciences as a program manager, science writer, and contract researcher — in disease areas far removed from Tregs. And then, in the middle of the night, the call came from Stockholm. Dr. Brunkow, along with Drs. Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi, was awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for that foundational work — work that has since opened a new era in therapeutics for autoimmune conditions and cancer. Her talk will trace a career full of unexpected turns and explore how the science of regulatory T cells unlocked a powerful and previously hidden dimension of the immune system.