Hiking Off the Grid, a Nobel Winner Misses His Own Call

Fred Ramsdell, an American immunologist, made global headlines not just for winning the 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine, but for being unreachable when the news broke.

While the Nobel Committee in Stockholm was announcing his name, Ramsdell was reportedly hiking deep in the backcountry of Idaho, disconnected from phones and internet.

He shares the prize with Mary Brunkow of Seattle and Shimon Sakaguchi of Osaka for their groundbreaking research on regulatory T-cells — the body’s “security guards” that prevent the immune system from attacking itself.

Their discovery, which began in the 1990s and 2000s, laid the foundation for new treatments targeting autoimmune diseases. Colleagues and friends say Ramsdell is “living his best life,” unaware that he’s now part of Nobel history.