For decades, scientists have worked to understand one of the immune system’s most complex players: regulatory T cells (Tregs). Long recognized for their potential to restore immune balance, Tregs have remained difficult to define and fully translate into real-world therapies—especially for autoimmune diseases such as scleroderma.
This past year, that effort reached a turning point. The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine recently honored the discovery of Tregs and the FOXP3 lineage program. This breakthrough is broadly significant for autoimmune disease research, where restoring immune balance has long been a central goal.
To mark this moment, Vie Ventures—a biotech venture capital firm co-founded by Luke Evnin, PhD (SRF Board Chairman) and Steven St. Peter, MD—convened biotech leaders, scientific experts, and investors last month, as part of JP Morgan Healthcare Week in San Francisco.
“This is such a moment to celebrate,” said Steven St. Peter. “It’s an area of biology we’ve been trying to unravel for decades, with enormous potential across autoimmune disease because it spans multiple indications.”
During the evening, Jeff Bluestone, PhD (SRF Scientific Advisory Board Emeritus) and Nobel Laureate Fred Ramsdell, PhD, led an intimate fireside conversation with attendees, exploring how decades of basic immunology research are now shaping the future of medicine.
“This is really something special for us—it’s the first Vie Ventures community gathering, and it was a phenomenal turnout,” shared Luke Evnin.
As a Strategic Collaborator in Vie Ventures, the SRF is excited to see how conversations at events like these are helping move autoimmune science forward and strengthens some of our key priorities: accelerating innovative therapeutics for scleroderma, and elevating the visibility of this disease within the larger biotech sector.
Pictured (left to right): Luke Evnin, PhD (SRF Board Chairman) and Steven St. Peter, MD
