The Gairdner Foundation announced on March 25 that Prof Shimon Sakaguchi and the six other scientists are awarded The Canada Gairdner International Award 2015.
The Canada Gairdner International Award is recognized as one of the most prestigious awards in biomedical sciences. The previous awardees include Kimishige Ishizaka, Susumu Tonegawa (immunology), and Shinya Yamanaka (regenerative medicine). Prof. Shizuo Akira (Director of IFReC) was also awarded the Gairdner Award by his groundbreaking discoveries in the field of innate immunity in 2011.
The Gairdner Foundation commented “Prof. Sakaguchi is awarded for his discovery of regulatory T cells, characterization of their role in immunity and application to the treatment of autoimmune diseases and cancer.”
The foundation provides a $100,000 (CDN) to each awardee, and will hold the Gairdner National Program, a lecture series given by Gairdner Award winners on October 26-30, 2015 in Canada.
