The scurfy gene: From the Mouse House to the Nobel Prize

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A sickly mouse in a 1940s lab at Oak Ridge National Laboratory didn’t look like a breakthrough. But that unexpected mutation — known as scurfy — would eventually help unlock one of the immune system’s most important secrets. In this episode of the Sound of Science, we trace the decades-long journey from ORNL’s early mammalian genetics program to the discovery of FOXP3, the gene that directs development of regulatory T cells — the immune system’s natural “brakes.” Featuring Nobel Prize winner Mary Brunkow, this story draws a throughline from post–World War II radiation studies at ORNL to modern breakthroughs in autoimmune disease and cancer immunotherapy.

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