Science & TechnologyPriority2025-10-08

2025 Nobel Prizes in Science Disciplines Announced

Why focus: Tests Regulatory T cells and quantum tunneling — GS3 Science, classic Match-the-Following format for Nobel discoveries

In News

What Happened

In October 2025, the Nobel Prizes in scientific disciplines were awarded for three transformative discoveries. The Physiology or Medicine prize went to Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi for discovering peripheral immune tolerance mediated by regulatory T cells and the FOXP3 gene. The Physics prize was awarded to John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis for demonstrating macroscopic quantum tunnelling in superconducting circuits, while the Chemistry prize honored Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar Yaghi for the development of ultra-porous Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs).

Why It Matters

These breakthroughs directly address critical global challenges across healthcare, technology, and climate change. Regulatory T cells offer new therapeutic pathways for treating autoimmune diseases and preventing organ transplant rejection, macroscopic quantum tunnelling forms the foundational architecture of modern quantum computing, and MOFs provide highly efficient mechanisms for direct air carbon capture and harvesting drinking water from arid environments.

Background

History & Context

For decades, immunologists debated the existence of 'suppressor' cells that keep the immune system from attacking the body's own tissues. This was resolved in 1995 when Shimon Sakaguchi identified regulatory T cells, while Brunkow and Ramsdell later pinpointed the FOXP3 gene mutation responsible for fatal autoimmune disorders like IPEX syndrome. Concurrently in the 1980s, physicists at UC Berkeley (Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis) sought to prove that quantum mechanics, which celebrated its centenary in 2025, could apply to objects large enough to see. By experimenting with superconducting Josephson junctions, they successfully observed quantum tunnelling on a macroscopic scale. In materials science, the quest for highly porous structures led Richard Robson in 1989 to synthesize the first Metal-Organic Frameworks, which were subsequently refined by Yaghi and Kitagawa into highly stable, modular 'molecular sponges' capable of precise gas separation.

What Changed

▶
Immune Regulation: BEFORE, immunology largely relied on central immune tolerance (filtering in the thymus) to explain self-recognition; NOW, the discovery of CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells establishes that peripheral immune tolerance acts as an ongoing, active suppressor of autoimmunity in tissues.
▶
Genetic Control of Immunity: BEFORE, the exact genetic switch for immune restraint was a mystery; NOW, the FOXP3 gene is identified as the master transcription factor that dictates the development and lineage of regulatory T cells.
▶
Quantum Tunnelling: BEFORE, quantum mechanical phenomena like tunnelling were considered strictly limited to subatomic particles; NOW, they are proven to occur in macroscopic superconducting electrical circuits containing billions of Cooper pairs.
▶
Quantum Computing Architecture: BEFORE, practical realization of quantum states was hindered by thermal decoherence in macroscopic objects; NOW, superconducting Josephson junctions serve as the stable, foundational architecture for modern qubits.
▶
Gas Storage Materials: BEFORE, storing volatile gases like hydrogen or capturing CO2 required extreme high-pressure cylinders and heavy absorbents; NOW, Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) provide modular molecular scaffolding with unprecedented internal surface area (the size of a football pitch in a few grams).
▶
Atmospheric Water Harvesting: BEFORE, extracting drinking water from desert air was highly energy-prohibitive and inefficient; NOW, customized MOFs can passively trap and release water molecules even in highly arid environments.

What Did NOT Change

Despite the massive clinical leap in utilizing regulatory T cells, the fundamental challenge of ensuring Treg cell lineage stability within a patient's body during in vivo therapies remains a significant hurdle. Similarly, while superconducting qubits have advanced rapidly based on the 1980s discoveries, realizing fault-tolerant quantum computation without environmental decoherence is still an ongoing global engineering challenge.

Prelims Angle

NCERT Connection

This comprehensively builds upon Class 12 Biology Chapter 8 (Human Health and Disease), specifically the section on 'Autoimmunity'. The NCERT explains that higher vertebrates evolved the ability to distinguish foreign molecules from 'self-cells,' and a failure of this results in autoimmune diseases like Rheumatoid arthritis. The 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine details the exact cellular and genetic mechanism behind this textbook concept: peripheral immune tolerance maintained by Regulatory T cells (Tregs) and encoded by the FOXP3 gene actively prevents the immune system from destroying the body's own tissues.

Common Misconceptions

✗ The immune system's sole function is to seek and destroy foreign pathogens.

✓ A major and essential part of the immune system actively suppresses immune responses through regulatory T cells (Tregs) to maintain homeostasis and prevent the body from destroying its own tissues.

Traditional immunology education focuses heavily on effector cells (like killer T cells and antibodies) fighting infections, overshadowing the equally important 'brakes' of the immune system.

✗ Quantum mechanical effects like tunnelling can only occur at the scale of single atoms or electrons.

✓ Quantum tunnelling and energy quantization can occur in macroscopic systems if they are in a collective state, such as billions of Cooper pairs operating in superconducting electrical circuits.

Everyday intuition and classical physics teach that large objects cannot pass through impenetrable barriers, making macroscopic quantum phenomena highly counterintuitive.

✗ Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are solid, dense metallic structures used for heavy industrial construction.

✓ MOFs are ultra-porous crystalline materials with massive internal cavities, acting like microscopic molecular sponges to trap specific gases or water.

The word 'metal' typically conjures images of solid, heavy, and impenetrable materials like steel or iron, rather than delicate, highly porous honeycombed lattices.

Practice Questions

Q1

How Many Correct

Consider the following statements regarding the discoveries honored by the 2025 Nobel Prizes in Science: 1. The FOXP3 gene encodes the master transcription factor that dictates the development of regulatory T cells for maintaining peripheral immune tolerance. 2. Macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling was first demonstrated using standard copper electrical circuits at room temperature. 3. Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) utilize their massive internal surface area to capture carbon dioxide and can be engineered to extract water from arid air. How many of the above statements are correct?

Q2

Match the Following

Match the scientific concept (List I) with its corresponding application or characteristic (List II) as highlighted by the 2025 Nobel Prizes: List I: A. Regulatory T cells B. Josephson junctions C. Metal-Organic Frameworks D. Cooper pairs List II: 1. Superconducting electrical circuits used to demonstrate macroscopic quantum behaviour. 2. Prevention of autoimmune diseases via active suppression of self-reactive immune responses. 3. Bound charge carriers that allow resistance-free current in superconductors. 4. Ultra-porous crystalline lattices used for hydrogen storage and carbon capture. Select the correct code:

Q3

Assertion & Reason

Assertion (A): Superconducting electrical circuits can be utilized to construct functional qubits for modern quantum computers. Reason (R): By eliminating environmental thermal noise, superconducting circuits can exhibit discrete, quantized energy levels and quantum tunnelling on a macroscopic scale. Select the correct answer:

Up next