The Robert Koch Prize is named after the German bacteriologist Robert Koch, who was known for discovering tubercle bacilli and produced many Nobel Prize scholars from himself and his students.It is considered to be the highest prize and prestigious award in the Federal Republic of Germany, and is given especially to outstanding researchers in the fields of microbiology and immunology from among medical research.

　The award consists of the Koch Award and the Koch Gold Medal. The Koch Award is given to those who make new discoveries, and the Gold Medal is given to those who have accumulated outstanding achievements in medical research.

　This time, Professor Shimon Sakaguchi won the Koch Prize.We have discovered regulatory T cells (Tregs) and clarified the mechanism of self-tolerance in immunity (the mechanism by which immune cells do not attack themselves).Subsequent studies have great expectations for the role of Tregs in cancer immunotherapy.

　Professor Sakaguchi will be presented by the Koch Foundation with a prize of 120,000 euros for the Koch Prize.The gold medal was awarded to Dr. Thomas Meyer, director of the Max Planck Institute for Infectious Biology in Germany.

　Past domestic Koch Prize winners include Professor Shigekazu Nagata, Professor Shizuo Akira (both IFReC), and Professor Tasuku Honjo (Kyoto University, 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine).The gold medal has three Japanese award winners, including Professor Satoshi Omura (Kitasato University, 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) and Professor Tadamitsu Kishimoto (IFReC).Robert Koch's direct pupil is Shibasaburo Kitasato, the founder of modern infectious disease and immunology in Japan.

Reference: [Osaka University] Professor Shimon Sakaguchi received the Robert Koch Prize