Born into a family of Palestinian refugees in Jordan with little schooling, Nobel chemistry laureate Omar Yaghi on Wednesday (October 8, 2025) paid tribute to science’s “equalising force”.

Prof. Yaghi, a Jordanian-American, won the 2025 prize together with Susumu Kitagawa of Japan and U.K.-born Richard Robson for their groundbreaking discoveries on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), whose uses include capturing carbon dioxide and harvesting water from desert air.

“I grew up in a very humble home. We were a dozen of us in one small room, sharing it with the cattle that we used to raise,” he told the Nobel Foundation in an interview after learning he had won the prestigious prize.

Their home had no electricity or running water. His father had only finished sixth grade and his mother could neither read nor write.

Born in 1965, he spent his childhood in Amman, in Jordan, before leaving for the United States at the age of 15, on the advice of his stern father.

Prof. Yaghi first discovered molecular structures in a book when he was 10 years old, after sneaking into the usually locked school library.

His eyes were drawn to the “unintelligible but captivating” images.

“It’s quite a journey,” he mused — and one that science enabled him to make, he said.

“Science is the greatest equalising force in the world,” Prof. Yaghi said.

“Smart people, talented people, skilled people exist everywhere. That’s why we really should focus on unleashing their potential through providing them with opportunity.”

His research group succeeded in extracting water from desert air in Arizona.

“I started at Arizona State University, my independent career and my dream was to publish at least one paper that receives 100 citations,” he recalled.

“Now my students say that our group has garnered over 250,000 citations.”

“The beauty of chemistry is that if you learn how to control matter on the atomic and molecular level, well, the potential is great,” he said.

“We opened a gold mine in that way and the field grew,” he said.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is being awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi “for the development of metal–organic frameworks.,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Wednesday (October 8, 2025).

The Nobel Prize laureates in chemistry 2025 have created molecular constructions with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow. These constructions, metal-organic frameworks, can be used to harvest water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide, store toxic gases or catalyse chemical reactions.

 In 1989, Richard Robson tested utilising the inherent properties of atoms in a new way by combining positively charged copper ions with a four-armed molecule; this had a chemical group that was attracted to copper ions at the end of each arm. Though the molecular construction had potential, it was unstable and collapsed easily.

However, Susumu Kitagawa and Omar Yaghi provided this building method with a firm foundation. Kitagawa showed that gases can flow in and out of the constructions and predicted that MOFs could be made flexible. Yaghi created a very stable MOF and showed that it can be modified using rational design, giving it new and desirable properties.

The 2024 Nobel Prize for chemistry was shared by David Baker “for computational protein design” along with Demis Hassabis and John Jumper “for protein structure prediction,”

Nobel Prize announcements kicked off on Monday (October 6, 2025) with the Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Three scientists – Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi shared the Medicine Nobel for identifying the immune system’s security guards, regulatory T cells. Physics Nobel, announced on Tuesday (October 7), was awarded to John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martini for building device showing ‘quantum tunnelling’.

The winners of the Literature, Peace and Economic Sciences Prize will be declared on October 9, October 10, and October 13 respectively.

The prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor (approximately ₹1.03 crore) and will be awarded on December 10.

The Nobel Prize was created by 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”.

The Nobel Prize in Physics is being awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced in Stockhom on Tuesday (October 7, 2025).

“It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the way that century-old quantum mechanics continually offers new surprises. It is also enormously useful, as quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technology,” saids Olle Eriksson, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

The transistors in computer microchips are one example of the established quantum technology that surrounds us. This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics has provided opportunities for developing the next generation of quantum technology, including quantum cryptography, quantum computers, and quantum sensors, the Nobel Prize committee said in a media release.

John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton were jointly awarded the Physics Nobel last year “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.”

Nobel Prize announcements kicked off on Monday (October 7, 2025) with the Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Three scientists — Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi — shared the Medicine Nobel for identifying the immune system’s security guards, regulatory T cells. The winners for Chemistry will be announced on Wednesday (October 8), while the winners of the Literature, Peace and Economic Sciences Prize will be declared on October 9, October 10, and October 13 respectively.

The prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor (approximately ₹1.03 crore) and will be awarded on December 10.

The Nobel Prize was created by 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”.

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi for their work on how immune systems work in determining what should be attacked or protected. The prize was announced at the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday (October 6, 2025).

What is the research about?

The 2025 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine concerns the peripheral immune tolerance.

The peripheral immune system of the body includes the components of the immune system outside the central nervous system, which is made up of the brain and the spinal cord. The prize-winning research identifies regulatory T (Treg) cells, which prevent immune cells from attacking the host body itself.

Shimon Sakaguchi

The primary work that led to this discovery was done by Japanese immunologist Shimon Sakaguchi. Currently at the Osaka University in Japan, 74-year-old Sakaguchi earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from Kyoto University in 1983, although he reportedly began researching Treg cells first in 1979.

T-cells, in general, help the immune system fight hostile bodies and keep people disease-free. There are different kinds of these cells, specialised to perform different tasks. These cells are identified by proteins on their surfaces.

Sakaguchi identified the Treg cells in 1995. Instead of attacking foreign bodies, these cells help calm the immune system so that it doesn’t end up attacking the host itself or causing autoimmune diseases.

Other researchers in the field, however, wanted more proof of the existence of Treg cells.

Sakaguchi also won the Canada Gairdner Award in 2015 for the same discovery. He was previously also a Lucille P. Marky scholar which allowed him to pursue biomedical research in the US.

Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell

Mary Brunkow holds a PhD in molecular biology from Princeton University. She is currently a senior program manager at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, US.

Fred Ramsdell is a scientific advisor at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in Bainbridge island, Washington. He holds a PhD in immunology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

After Sakaguchi’s initial work in the field of Treg cells, Brunkow and Ramsdell got interested in a mutation in the male scurfy mouse strain, which was being attacked by T-cells, thus destroying its own tissues. Both Brunkow and Ramsdell worked at the Celltech Chiroscience biotech company in Bothell, Washington, at the time, and tried to find the cause of this disease with the idea of studying how autoimmune diseases arise.

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi for their work on how immune systems work in determining what should be attacked or protected. The prize was announced at the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday (October 6, 2025).

What is the research about?

The 2025 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine concerns the peripheral immune tolerance.

The peripheral immune system of the body includes the components of the immune system outside the central nervous system, which is made up of the brain and the spinal cord. The prize-winning research identifies regulatory T (Treg) cells, which prevent immune cells from attacking the host body itself.

Shimon Sakaguchi

The primary work that led to this discovery was done by Japanese immunologist Shimon Sakaguchi. Currently at the Osaka University in Japan, 74-year-old Sakaguchi earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from Kyoto University in 1983, although he reportedly began researching Treg cells first in 1979.

T-cells, in general, help the immune system fight hostile bodies and keep people disease-free. There are different kinds of these cells, specialised to perform different tasks. These cells are identified by proteins on their surfaces.

Sakaguchi identified the Treg cells in 1995. Instead of attacking foreign bodies, these cells help calm the immune system so that it doesn’t end up attacking the host itself or causing autoimmune diseases.

Other researchers in the field, however, wanted more proof of the existence of Treg cells.

Sakaguchi also won the Canada Gairdner Award in 2015 for the same discovery. He was previously also a Lucille P. Marky scholar which allowed him to pursue biomedical research in the US.

Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell

Mary Brunkow holds a PhD in molecular biology from Princeton University. She is currently a senior program manager at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, US.

Fred Ramsdell is a scientific advisor at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in Bainbridge island, Washington. He holds a PhD in immunology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

After Sakaguchi’s initial work in the field of Treg cells, Brunkow and Ramsdell got interested in a mutation in the male scurfy mouse strain, which was being attacked by T-cells, thus destroying its own tissues. Both Brunkow and Ramsdell worked at the Celltech Chiroscience biotech company in Bothell, Washington, at the time, and tried to find the cause of this disease with the idea of studying how autoimmune diseases arise.