Nobel Prize for mRNA Covid vaccine scientists

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been jointly awarded to Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet, for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 pandemic.

Hungarian-born Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman of the US have won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their research that led directly to the first mRNA vaccines to fight Covid-19, made by Pfizer and Moderna, according to the awarding body.

“The laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” the jury said in Sweden’s capital Stockholm on Monday. Katalin Kariko is a professor at Sagan’s University in Hungary and an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Drew Weissman conducted his prizewinning research together with Kariko at the University of Pennsylvania.

The pair will receive their prize, consisting of a diploma, a gold medal and a US$ 1 million cheque from King Carl XVI Gustaf at a formal ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of scientist Alfred Nobel who created the prizes in his last will and testament.

The discoveries by these two Nobel Laureates were critical for developing effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 during the pandemic that began in early 2020. Through their groundbreaking findings, which have fundamentally changed the understanding of how mRNA interacts with the human immune system, the laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times.

The impressive flexibility and speed with which mRNA vaccines can be developed pave the way for using it also for vaccines against other infectious diseases. In the future, the technology may also be used to deliver therapeutic proteins and treat some cancer types.

Several other vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, based on different methodologies, were also rapidly introduced, and together, more than 13 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses have been given globally. The vaccines have saved millions of lives and prevented severe disease in many more, allowing societies to open and return to normal conditions. Through their fundamental discoveries of the importance of base modifications in mRNA, this year’s Nobel laureates critically contributed to this transformative development during one of the biggest health crises of our time.

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