University of Birmingham joins Nobel Prize winner to win major funding on chronic inflammation

Scientists and clinician-scientists at the University of Birmingham will lead a major research programme to transform the treatment of autoimmune diseases by halting chronic inflammation at its source.

Backed by a £3.83 million Wellcome Discovery Award, Birmingham researchers will join 2025 Nobel Prize winner Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, from Osaka University, and Professor Calliope Dendrou from the University of Oxford.

The ambitious and visionary eight-year programme brings together world-leading scientists and clinician-scientists to focus on understanding and controlling the immune system’s regulatory mechanisms, with a particular focus on the liver.

Research will focus on the role of Foxp3+ Regulatory T-cells in maintaining immune tolerance and preventing tissue damage caused by autoimmune responses. Scientists and clinicians in the UK and Japan will explore how these Regulatory T-cells discovered by Professor Sakaguchi can be used to restore immune balance and treat autoimmune diseases.

Project leader Ye Htun Oo, Professor of Autoimmune Liver Diseases, from the University of Birmingham has been working in research partnership for more than 12 years with Professor Sakaguchi.

Professor Sakaguchi was announced this week as one of three co-winners of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, alongside US scientists Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell for their work understanding how Regulatory T-cells maintain a healthy balance within the immune system, creating openings for possible new autoimmune disease and cancer treatments.

Professor Oo commented: “Congratulations to Professor Sakaguchi on his Nobel Prize success - we are looking forward to continuing the University of Birmingham’s longstanding research partnership with him as we explore together how the Regulatory T cells that he discovered 30 years ago can help to treat autoimmune liver diseases.”

He also commented that Birmingham is one of the biggest liver transplant centres in Europe and this new approach of controlling autoimmune diseases with Regulatory T cells, will give hope to prevent liver transplantations for autoimmune liver diseases in future.

Autoimmune diseases occur when the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks its own tissues. In liver diseases such as autoimmune hepatitis, primary biliary cholangitis, and primary sclerosing cholangitis, there is currently no cure, leading to chronic inflammation, organ damage, and loss of function and eventually requiring liver transplantations.

Professor Sakaguchi commented: “This exciting collaborative award will allow us to work together to understand stable functional regulatory T cells biology and to progress towards future therapy with these cells for patients with autoimmune liver diseases and multi-organ autoimmunity.”

The programme unites the expertise of Professors Sakaguchi and Professor Oo with Professor Graham Anderson, from the University of Birmingham – a leading authority on thymic T-cell development and immune tolerance – and Professor Calliope Dendrou, from the University of Oxford, an expert in immune disease single-cell and spatial multiomics.

Professor Anderson commented: “By revealing how immune cells interact with tissue during chronic inflammation, our goal is to find a way of using these Regulatory T-cells as a naturally occurring way of treating autoimmune disease of the liver - nature’s medicine. We aim to use our work as proof of concept in the liver that is transferrable to other forms of the condition which can cause significant damage to the gut, skin, and other organs.”

Professor Sakaguchi was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by the University of Birmingham in 2019 in recognition of his vision and research driving the development of regulatory T cells as therapeutic in autoimmunity and organ transplantations.