It’s a cute little town. I’d love to go back and spend more time, but no, it was just, “Let’s just go get something to eat,” because I gotta get back—I got a lot of things to do.
Did you tell anyone in the pub that you won the Nobel Prize?
I did not tell anyone, haha. I didn’t think I needed to do that.
You said you don’t follow the Nobel Prizes. How shocking was it to you that you won? I’m assuming you’re aware of how big of a breakthrough your discoveries are, but did you think, well, there’s a lot of great science happening?
I’m not quite that naive. The main reason I didn’t think it would ever happen is that about eight years ago, I along with Shimon Sakaguchi, who was another one of the co-lauterates for this, and then another very good friend of mine who does amazing work at the Sloan Kettering Institute, we won the Crafoord Prize, which is also from the Royal Swedish Academy. It’s a family foundation thing in Sweden.
We went over in, I think, 2017, and it was a great time. You know, speeches, we met the crown princess. It was amazing. And so I thought, OK, that is the recognition that this particular scientific discovery is going to get, which was awesome. So I’m like, that’s better than I could have ever hoped for. People would talk about the Nobel, and I would be like “I don’t think so.” And after that, I was like, “It’s never gonna happen, don’t even think about it.” So I was truly shocked when I heard about it.
Why do you think you received the Nobel Prize for this work now? Do you think it’s because of increased interest in immunology due to Covid? Or is it because these discoveries have now made hundreds of new medical trials possible?
