An offline scientist “living his best life” was stunned by winning the Nobel Prize

It’s a nice little town. I would love to go back and spend more time, but no, it was just ‘let’s go and eat something’ because I have to go back – I have too many things to do.

Did you tell anyone at the bar that you won the Nobel Prize?

I didn’t tell anyone, haha. I didn’t think I needed to do this.

You said you don’t follow the Nobel Prizes. How shocking was it for you to win? I assume you’re aware of how huge your discoveries are, but have you thought, well, there’s a lot of great science happening?

I’m not that naive. The main reason I didn’t think it would ever happen is that about eight years ago, myself and Shimon Sakaguchi, who was another one of the co-winners, and then another good friend of mine who does amazing work at the Sloan Kettering Institute, won the Craford Prize, which is also from the Royal Swedish Academy. It is a family essential in Sweden.

I think we went into 2017, and it was a great time. You know, the speeches, we met the Crown Prince. It was amazing. And so I thought, well, this is the recognition that this particular scientific discovery is going to get, which was great. So I said, this is better than I could have hoped for. People were talking about the Nobel Prize, and I was like, “I don’t think so.” And after that, I said, “This will never happen, don’t even think about it.” So I was really shocked when I heard about that.

Why do you think you got the Nobel Prize for this work now? Do you think this is because of the increased interest in immunology due to Covid? Or is it because these discoveries have now made hundreds of new medical experiments possible?