Nobel Spotlight

(Chicago, Illinois) October 6, 2025

ExoMira Medicine congratulates Drs. Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi on being awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their seminal discovery of regulatory T cells (Tregs), a breakthrough that has transformed the field of immunology and opened new therapeutic avenues across cancer, autoimmunity, and transplantation.

The recognition of Tregs underscores the global scientific effort to understand immune tolerance and modulation—an area central to ExoMira's mission. Since the full discovery of Tregs in 2001, the field has rapidly evolved, yet translating this biology into safe and effective cancer therapies remains a formidable challenge. While suppressing Tregs can boost antitumor immunity, existing approaches often result in collateral suppression of beneficial CD8⁺ T cells, limiting their therapeutic potential.

ExoMira is proud to contribute to the next chapter of this field. In a landmark study published in Nature (2020), ExoMira’s scientific co-founder, Dr. Deyu Fang, identified USP22 as the first Treg-specific dependency in the tumor microenvironment, enabling precise modulation of Tregs without impairing cytotoxic T cell function. Building on this discovery, the team developed the first-in-class small-molecule USP22 inhibitor, as published in Science Advances (2022). ExoMira is now progressing this breakthrough program and its lead product, MIRA-1, through IND-enabling studies, with the goal of advancing a novel cancer immunotherapy into the clinic.

The Nobel Committee’s recognition of Treg biology marks a milestone moment for the field—and a powerful validation of ExoMira’s scientific foundation and therapeutic strategy.