Shimon Sakaguchi obtained an M.D. in 1976 and a Ph.D. in 1982 from Kyoto University, Japan, where he was trained as a pathologist and immunologist. After performing postdoctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University as a Lucille P. Markey Scholar, he served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Immunology at the Scripps Research Institute. He returned to Japan in 1991 and continued his immunology research as the Head of the Department of Immunopathology at Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Tokyo. From 1998 to 2011, he was a Professor of Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences Kyoto University and served as the Director of the Institute for several years. He is currently a Distinguished Professor at the Immunology Frontier Research Center (IFReC) Osaka University, Japan. He was elected to Foreign Member of National Academy of Sciences USA in 2012, and has been awarded many international prizes including Cancer Research Institute’s William B. Coley Award in 2004, Keio Medical Science Prize in 2008, Canada Gairdner International Award in 2015, the Crafoord Prize in 2017, the German Immunology Award in 2019, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in 2020, and the Robert Koch Prize in 2020.