It’s a lovely little town. I would love to go back and spend more time, but no, I thought, “Let’s just go eat something,” because I have to go back – I have a lot of things to do.
Have you told anyone in the pub that you’ve won the Nobel Prize?
I didn’t tell anyone, haha. I didn’t think I had to do this.
You said you don’t follow the Nobel Prizes. How much of a shock was the victory for you? I assume you realize what a breakthrough your discoveries are, but have you considered that there is a lot of great science going on?
I’m not that naive. The main reason I didn’t think it would ever happen is that about eight years ago, Shimon Sakaguchi, who was another co-author of this paper, and then a very good friend of mine who does amazing work at the Sloan Kettering Institute, and I won the Crafoord Prize, which is also awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy. In Sweden it is a family foundation.
We were there in 2017, I think, and it was a great time. You know, the speeches, we met the crown princess. It was amazing. So I thought, OK, this is the kind of recognition that this particular scientific discovery is going to get, which was amazing. So I think it’s better than I could have expected. People were talking about the Nobel Prize and I said, “I don’t think so.” And then I thought, “It will never happen, don’t even think about it.” So I was really shocked when I heard about it.
Why do you think you received the Nobel Prize for this work now? Do you think this is due to the increased interest in immunology due to Covid? Or is it because these discoveries are now making hundreds of fresh medical tests possible?