From Cells to Circuits to Crystals — 2025 Nobel Prizes Unpacked (EP. 11)

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this one-episode special brings all three 2025 Nobel Prizes in the sciences into a single listen: Medicine (immune tolerance and FOXP3), Physics (macroscopic quantum tunneling in superconducting circuits), and Chemistry (metal–organic frameworks and “new rooms for chemistry”).
Summary
• Medicine: Regulatory T cells and the FOXP3 gene that prevent autoimmune disease.
• Physics: Macroscopic quantum tunneling and energy quantization in electrical circuits — the bridge to today’s qubits.
• Chemistry: Metal–Organic Frameworks (MOFs) — modular porous crystals enabling CO₂ capture, water harvesting, and hydrogen storage.

Show Notes
• Nobel Prize Press Release (2025 Medicine) (nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2025/press-rele…)
• Nature Genetics (2001) — FOXP3 mutation and IPEX link (nature.com/articles/ng0101_20)
• Nature Genetics (2001) — FOXP3 Mutation Causes Dysregulation (nature.com/articles/ng0101_18)
• Nature Genetics (2001) — FOXP3 Gene Cause IPEX Syndrome (nature.com/articles/ng0101_68)
• Science (2003) — FOXP3 function in regulatory T cells (science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1079490)
• German Journal of Immunology (1995) — Sakaguchi’s first Treg paper (academic.oup.com/jimmunol/article-abstract/155…)
• Nobel Prize Press Release (2025 Physics) (nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2025/press-release)
• Physical Review Letters (1980s) — Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling Experiments (UC Berkeley) (journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevL…)
• BCS Theory (1972 Nobel) — Bardeen, Cooper & Schrieffer, University of Illinois (journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.1…)
• Josephson Effect (1973 Nobel) — Brian D. Josephson (academia.edu/3328122/Possible_new_effects_in_s…)
• Google Quantum AI Lab — Quantum Supremacy Paper (Nature, 2019) (nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1666-5)
• Nobel Prize Press Release (2025 Chemistry) (nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2025/press-rel…)
• Nature (1999) — MOF-5 Discovery (Omar Yaghi et al.) (nature.com/articles/378703a0)
• Science (2003) — Reticular Chemistry Foundations (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12802325)
• Journal of the American Chemical Society (1989, 1990) — Richard Robson’s Early Frameworks (pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ja00197a079)
• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — ChatMOF and AI-Assisted Materials Discovery (nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48998-4)