Nobel Committee Unable To Reach Medicine Prize Winner On 'Digital Detox'

The Nobel Assembly of Sweden's Karolinska Institute Medical University awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine earlier this week. Scientists Mary Brunkow, Shimon Sakaguchi and Fred Ramsdell won the prestigious award for their "discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance". However, there has been a slight issue -- the announcement has not reached the intended recipient. The Nobel committee is unable to reach Ramsdell, who appears to be on a digital detox, living his 'best life'.

The researcher is reported to be on an off-the-grid hiking trip in the American wilderness, with the Nobel Prize committee unable to reach him. As per Ramsdell's colleagues, his solitary trip has left him beyond the reach of phone or email.

"I've been trying to get hold of him myself. I think he may be backpacking in the back-country in Idaho," Jeffrey Bluestone, a friend and co-founder of Ramsdell's laboratory, was quoted as saying by AFP.

Prior to Ramsdell, the committee was unable to reach Brunkow as well, who is also based on the US West Coast. However, they eventually got hold of her, with Ramsdell remaining the only one not to be informed about the achievement.

This is not the first instance when the committee has faced a similar dilemma. In 2020, Bob Wilson unplugged his phone when the committee called him in the middle of the night to confer the Nobel Prize in Economics. The committee was then forced to call his wife.

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Nobel Prizes

The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who in his will dictated that his estate should be used to fund "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind". Nobel died in 1895, but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will, before the first prizes were awarded.

Nobel named the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to award the prizes for chemistry and physics, the Swedish Academy for Literature, Sweden's Karolinska Institute Medical University for Physiology or Medicine, and the Norwegian Parliament for Peace.

Last year's medicine prize was awarded to US scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA and its key role in how multicellular organisms grow and live, helping explain how cells specialise into different types.