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Landmark discoveries about the immune system’s protective mechanisms earn global recognition for Garvan and 91ɫ��Ƭ Sydney researcher.

Professor Christopher Goodnow, Head of the Immunogenomics Laboratory at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and a Professor at the 91ɫ��Ƭ Cellular Genomics Futures Institute, has been awarded the 2025 Crafoord Prize in Polyarthritis alongside Professor David Nemazee from US-based Scripps Research.

The Crafoord Prize, established in 1980 and awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, is one of the world’s most esteemed scientific awards. Considered complementary to the Nobel Prizes, it recognises achievements in fields not covered by Nobel categories. 

The prize, worth 6 million Swedish kronor (approximately A$870,000), rotates annually between mathematics and astronomy, geosciences, biosciences and polyarthritis. Prof. Goodnow becomes the third Australian to receive the honour after physicist-turned-biologist Robert May and mathematician Terence Tao.

Profs Goodnow and Nemazee were honoured for their groundbreaking discovery of fundamental mechanisms that prevent B cells (a type of white blood cell) from attacking the body’s own tissues in autoimmune diseases. Their work has provided crucial insights into why most people don’t develop autoimmune conditions, which affect one in eight people globally.

“I’m deeply honoured by this recognition, which reflects a century of investment in new technologies to understand the body’s fundamental mechanisms for making antibodies,” said Prof. Goodnow, who is also a Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences at 91ɫ��Ƭ Medicine & Health. 

“Understanding how the immune system stays at peace with our own body while waging war on threatening microbes has been a fascinating journey. Sharing this prize with David Nemazee is especially meaningful, as we reached complementary answers to this question – overturning the consensus view at the time – to reshape our understanding of everything from blood transfusions to autoimmune disease.”

91ɫ��Ƭ Dean of Medicine & Health Professor Cheryl Jones congratulated Prof. Goodnow on his prestigious achievement.

“Professor Goodnow’s groundbreaking research has transformed our understanding of the immune system and provided vital insights into autoimmune diseases that affect millions of people worldwide. This recognition by the Crafoord Prize is a testament to his pioneering contributions and the profound impact his work continues to have on medical research and patient care.”

Prof. Goodnow’s research to reveal the mechanism that prevents our body from making antibodies against itself combined two then-new technologies: genomics and single-cell analysis. 

After training as a molecular biologist in Dr Mark Davis’s lab at Stanford University, and starting a PhD with Sir Gustav Nossal at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Prof. Goodnow did most of his PhD work at the University of Sydney from 1986–1989. 

There, he joined Professors Antony Basten and Ron Trent, collaborating with Dr Kathryn Raphael at CSIRO. This led to a breakthrough in 1988, when they revealed the first immune tolerance ‘checkpoint’ that actively stops B cells from making antibodies against our own body. 

Prof. Goodnow subsequently led teams at Stanford University, The Australian National University, at Garvan and 91ɫ��Ƭ Sydney, to reveal a series of checkpoints, how these checkpoints work, and how they break down in people with autoimmune diseases. They showed the checkpoints ‘test’ B cells during their development, providing a safeguard against B cells that could cause autoimmune attacks while allowing the immune system to respond to microbial threats. 

Tolerance checkpoints have become central to other areas of medicine, including cancer treatments that use ‘checkpoint inhibitors’ to unleash the immune system against tumours. 

Since joining Garvan in 2015, Prof. Goodnow has played a key role in several transformative initiatives, including the development of single-cell genomics through the Garvan-Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics and the 91ɫ��Ƭ Cellular Genomics Futures Institute. He currently leads Hope Research, an ambitious program that is revealing how rogue immune cells cause more than 100 different autoimmune diseases, and how to eliminate these rogue cells.

Professor Olle Kämpe, chair of the prize committee, noted that this research has given us “a new and detailed understanding of the mechanisms that normally prevent faulty B cells from attacking tissues in the body, explaining why most of us are not affected by autoimmune diseases”.

The practical implications of this work are already evident in clinical settings, where physicians are successfully using B cell-targeting treatments for severe autoimmune conditions including lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

The prize will be presented by H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in May 2025. Prof. Goodnow joins an elite group of international scientists recognised for their transformative contributions to science.