Science
Bay Area saw Nobel winners in its scientific community
Several Bay Area scientists were honored with Nobel Prizes in 2025, highlighting the region’s global impact on science. Among them were Fred Ramsdell from San Francisco for discoveries in immune regulation, physicist John Clarke from UC Berkeley for advances in quantum physics, and chemist Omar Yaghi for breakthroughs in sustainable materials.
By Larry Miller · October 12, 2025 · 1 min read
In 2025, the San Francisco / Bay Area region saw notable Nobel laureates linked to its scientific community:
- Fred Ramsdell, based in San Francisco and serving as a scientific adviser for Sonoma Biotherapeutics, was awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, jointly with Mary Brunkow and Shimon Sakaguchi. Their work revealed how regulatory T cells enforce peripheral immune tolerance, preventing the immune system from attacking the body’s own tissues. NobelPrize.org
- John Clarke, a physicist and emeritus professor at UC Berkeley (and former scientist at Berkeley Lab), was a recipient of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for foundational contributions to quantum phenomena in macroscopic systems.
- Also from UC Berkeley, Omar Yaghi, a chemist, won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on metal-organic frameworks, which have applications in gas storage, CO₂ capture, and water harvesting technologies.
Thus, 2025 saw at least three Nobel laureates with strong ties to the Bay Area: one working in a biochemistry/biomed lab in San Francisco, another as a physicist at UC Berkeley, and a third as a chemist professor at Berkeley.