First reactions | Mary Brunkow, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025 | Telephone interview

Nobel Prize October 6, 2025
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Video Description

“My phone rang, and I saw a number from Sweden and thought, well that’s just spam of some sort, so I disabled the phone and went back to sleep.” Mary Brunkow clearly wasn’t expecting the call from Stockholm. This brief conversation with the Nobel Prize’s Adam Smith catches the new medicine laureate at her dining table at 4:30am, an hour and a half after she had heard the news. She talks about the power of genetics to unravel biology and how she feels it was an honour to have been one of the contributors to solving the puzzle of immune tolerance: “It takes a bunch of different brains, all working on it together, for sure!” © Nobel Prize Outreach. First reactions terms of use: https://www.nobelprize.org/ceremonies/streams-terms-of-use