Many Smart and Talented People Call Bainbridge Island Home, and the Latest to be Recognized is Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Fred Ramsdell

Bainbridge Island is a smart place, a very smart place. Our physical attributes are second to none. We have beautiful forests, pristine creeks and waterways, and impeccable beaches and parklands. And our human population – you know, people like us – isn’t too shabby either. We’ve got lots of grey matter floating around.

Depending on whose study you believe, more than 65 percent of islanders have a four-year college degree or higher. And in case you haven’t noticed, the island is peopled with a bevy of successful – and in some cases, world renowned – artists, writers, film makers, scientists, lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, business owners, architects, engineers, and the like who are leaders in their chosen fields. Indeed, you could be standing in the checkout line at Town & Country Market or Safeway, and next to you, bagging their groceries, could be the former head of the Centers of Disease Control or the inventor of latex.

You might also bump into fellow islanders who have reached celebrity status in their calling. We’re talking about, say, Kristin Hannah, the author of “The Women” and other New York Times best-selling tomes, Elizabeth Mitchell, the actress who played Julie Burke in the internationally acclaimed series, Lost, and Ben Shepherd, the former bassist with the grunge rock phenom group, Soundgarden, among many, many others. Of course, any list of famous islanders would be incomplete without mentioning Russell Johnson, the actor who played The Professor on Gilligans Island. Johnson lived here for many years before passing away in 2014 at the age of 89. And, we can’t forget former three-term Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who has been an island resident for decades, and can sometimes be seen riding a bike on one of our island’s many hills.

Now add to this list, a new entry – maybe not new as an island resident – but new to many of us as an island notable. We’re talking, of course, about Dr. Fred Ramsdell, a highly acclaimed immunologist who recently won a Noble Prize in the area of Physiology or Medicine, along with two other researchers, for their groundbreaking work on regulatory T cells in the human immune system. His fellow researchers are Mary E. Brunkow and Shimon Sakaguchi

Ramsdell, who has called Bainbridge home since the early 1990s, is a co-founder and now scientific advisor with Sonoma Biotherapeutics based in both San Francisco and Seattle, while Brunkow works out of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle and Sakaguchi is affiliated with Osaka University in Japan. The trio were honored for their collective research on how certain cells – known as T cells – prevent the immune system from harming the body’s own tissues.

At the time of the Nobel Prize announcement, Ramsdell – who earned his doctorate in microbiology and immunology from UCLA in 1987 -was on a trek with his wife in the Rocky Mountains, without cellphone coverage. He didn’t find out about the honor until nearly 12 hours had passed. His employer, Sonoma Biotherapeutics, issued a statement that Ramsdell “was living his best life and was off the grid on a preplanned hiking trip”.

“I certainly didn’t expect to win the Nobel Prize,” he told the New York Times from a hotel in Montana once he’d regained reception. “It never even crossed my mind. … I was just grateful and humbled by getting the award, super happy for the recognition of the work in general and just looking forward to sharing this with my colleagues, as well.”

► Read the full story on Ramsdell’s “missed” Nobel phone call in the New York Time

After earning a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and cell biology from UC San Diego, Ramsdell went to UCLA in 1983 to study microbiology and immunology at UCLA’s medical school under the mentorship of Sidney Golub, now a professor at UC Irvine. In 1995, the microbiology and immunology program merged with the molecular genetics program in the UCLA College Division of Life Sciences.

“I fell in love with immunology in college,” Ramsdell said after receiving the prestigious Crafoord Prize in Polyarthritis from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2017. “It touches so many aspects of our biology that I felt like it was an important thing to work on.”

Following his 1987 Ph.D. at UCLA, Ramsdell went on to a fellowship with the National Institutes of Health before joining the biopharmaceutical company Immunex, where his research focused on T cell activation and tolerance and gene discovery, according to a UCLA press release. He then established an immunology program at the biotechnology company Darwin Molecular. Ramsdell subsequently held positions at ZymoGenetics and Novo Nordisk and was chief scientific officer at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. He currently serves on the scientific advisory board for Sonoma Biotherapeutics.

According to the UCLA published report, the Nobel committee noted that the work of Ramsdell and his associates, have laid the foundation for a new field of research known as peripheral immune tolerance and have spurred the pursuit of regulatory T cell–centered therapeutics in areas like cancer, autoimmune disease and stem cell transplantation. There are currently more than 200 ongoing clinical trials based on their research.

“Fred Ramsdell’s research on the immune system has transformed our understanding of autoimmune diseases and led to treatments that are saving lives around the world,” said UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk. “From improving care for conditions like multiple sclerosis to advancing cancer therapies, his work is driving medical breakthroughs that will shape the future of human health. I hope Bruins everywhere take pride in this well-deserved global recognition.

“At a time of unprecedented challenges to research funding, once again the United States leads the way in medical breakthroughs recognized by the Nobel Prize,” Frenk added.  Ramsdell’s work, including his Nobel-winning research, has led to improved care for people with autoimmune diseases like arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease and other disorders, said officials from UCLA.

In 2001, Ramsdell and Brunkow made another crucial discovery when they found that a specific mutation to a gene they named Foxp3 made the mouse strain they were studying particularly vulnerable to fatal autoimmune diseases. Not long after, they demonstrated that similar mutations caused a devastating autoimmune disease known as IPEX syndrome in humans.

Two years later, both Sakaguchi and Ramsdell, along with another colleague, described how the Foxp3 gene that Ramsdell and Brunkow discovered was directly responsible for governing the body’s development of regulatory T cells — shining a light on how the mutation interfered with that production, according to UCLA officials.

“Their discoveries have been decisive for our understanding of how the immune system functions and why we do not all develop serious autoimmune diseases,” said Olle Kämpe, chair of the Nobel committee.

Source Material: Our own reporting, The New York Times, The New York Times – Breaking News, US News, World News and Videos, Sonoma Biotheraputics https://sonomabio.com/ , and UCLA press: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-alum-fred-ramsdell-2025-nobel-prize-physiology-medicine

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