Prof. Pamela Bjorkman from the California Institute of Technology won the prestigious award for developing innovative antibody-focused approaches to combat viruses and establishing an infrastructure for advanced vaccine research.
The 2025 Wolf Prize in Medicine is awarded to Professor Pamela Bjorkman for developing innovative, groundbreaking strategies to tackle viral defense mechanisms using novel antibody-targeted approaches.
Pamela Bjorkman, 1956 (USA) is the David Baltimore Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Bjorkman grew up in Portland, Oregon, USA. She received her B.A. in chemistry from the University of Oregon and her Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard University. During her doctoral studies and later as a postdoctoral fellow in Don Wiley's laboratory at Harvard, she first deciphered the three-dimensional structure of the MHC (major histocompatibility complex) molecule, which plays a central role in the immune recognition of infected cells. This molecule presents potentially dangerous parts of pathogens to T lymphocytes, thus enabling the immune system to recognize and act against potential threats. Bjorkman then continued her postdoctoral training at Stanford University with Mark Davis, where she studied T-cell receptors. In 1989, she joined the Caltech faculty.
Study of pathogen recognition by the immune system
Bjorkman has spent decades studying how the immune system recognizes invading pathogens, with the goal of developing novel therapies that improve its response. Her research focuses on the structure and function of molecules involved in cell surface recognition, and in particular those that mediate immune system recognition. She studies immune responses to a wide range of viral pathogens with the goal of developing improved treatments and vaccines.
Pamela Bjorkman has made significant contributions in four different areas during her career. The first was the solution of the structure of the MHC class I antigen, a major achievement that changed the understanding of antigen recognition by T cells. The second was the characterization of the evolution of MHC-associated proteins, which revealed how MHC class I antigens can be targeted by other systems that are independent of T cell recognition. The third, in the search for ways to generate clinically effective immune responses against HIV, she demonstrated the great importance of vaccine strategies that target conserved epitopes to overcome viral variants. Finally, since the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, she has led studies to map structures in the coronavirus spike protein recognized by antibodies and attributed this to changes due to the rapid evolution of the virus. She subsequently developed a new strategy, based on the structural limitations of antibodies, to design immunogens aimed at stimulating a broad range of antibodies against viruses from the coronavirus family.
Bjorkman's career represents sustained creativity and extraordinary impact, combining basic research and applied medical science at the highest level.
Bjorkman's innovative work is pioneering new approaches to understanding and designing more effective approaches to defending against viruses. Her research on HIV has highlighted the importance of antibodies that recognize constant parts of the virus's envelope proteins.
However, viral envelope proteins often fold in a way that makes it difficult for the immune system to recognize conserved parts, while allowing the virus to easily degrade the exposed parts without compromising its fitness. To overcome this, Bjorkman has developed a novel approach to selecting antibodies that recognize conserved parts across different viral strains. This pioneering work represents a conceptual breakthrough and is expected to have much broader applications. Pamela Bjorkman's research opens a window for the development of future vaccines that will address humanity's greatest challenges in the field of immunization.
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