Nobel laureate Fred Ramsdell to speak at Flathead Valley Community College

American immunologist and Nobel Laureate Fred Ramsdell will speak at Flathead Valley Community College for a community-wide Honors Symposium on May 9 at 6 p.m.

Ramsdell will present on the scientific path that led to his 2025 Nobel Prize-winning work in physiology or medicine. He shared the Nobel Prize with Mary Brunkow and Shimon Sakaguchi for discoveries about the immune system. 

His talk will explore the mechanisms that allow the immune system to respond to pathogens without attacking the body’s own tissues, as well as the implications of this research for developing new therapeutic approaches.

The event is free and open to the public and takes place in the Wachholz College Center.

A leader in immunology with more than three decades of experience, Ramsdell is a founder of Sonoma Biotherapeutics and previously served as Chief Scientific Officer at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Earlier in his career at Darwin Molecular, his team discovered FOXP3, a key factor in regulatory T cell development and activity. This work helped earn both the 2017 Crafoord Prize and the 2025 Nobel Prize.

Ramsdell earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, San Diego, and his doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles. He also completed a fellowship at the National Institutes of Health.