Rate My Professor Shimon Sakaguchi

Shimon Sakaguchi is Distinguished Honorary Professor at the Immunology Frontier Research Center of Osaka University. He earned his medical degree from Kyoto University in 1976 and his Doctor of Medicine degree from the same institution in 1983. His early career included positions as a medical staff member at Kyoto University Hospital, postdoctoral researcher at Johns Hopkins University, Lucille P. Markey Scholar at Stanford University, and assistant professor at the Scripps Research Institute. He later served as head of the Department of Immunopathology at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology and as professor and chair of the Department of Experimental Pathology at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences, Kyoto University, where he also directed the institute from 2007 to 2011.

Sakaguchi joined Osaka University in 2011 as professor at the Immunology Frontier Research Center and was appointed Distinguished Professor in 2013. His research focuses on immunological tolerance and autoimmune disease, with foundational contributions including the identification of CD25+CD4+ regulatory T cells in 1995 and the discovery of the transcription factor Foxp3 as a master regulator of their development and function in 2003. These findings have advanced understanding of self-tolerance mechanisms, autoimmune disorders, cancer immunotherapy, and transplant tolerance. He has received numerous honors, including the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the Crafoord Prize, the Gairdner International Award, the Order of Culture, and election as a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences. Key publications include seminal papers in Science and Nature on regulatory T cell function and epigenetic regulation. His professional email address is shimon@ifrec.osaka-u.ac.jp.