This year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their work in developing messenger RNA vaccines, a crucial tool for reducing the spread of Covid-19.
Karikó and Weissman published the results of their work in a 2005 paper that received little attention at the time; however, later this same study laid the groundwork for the development of the vaccine.
“The laureates contributed to an unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” said the Nobel Prize committee in a statement.
Rickard Sandberg, one of the committee members, added: “Messenger RNA vaccines, along with other Covid-19 vaccines, have been administered more than 13 billion times. Together, they have saved millions of lives, prevented severe illness, reduced the global burden of disease, and allowed societies to reopen again.”
Karikó, a Hungarian-American biochemist, and Weissman, an American physician, are professors at the University of Pennsylvania. Their work served as the foundation for Pfizer and its partner BioNTech, based in Germany, as well as for Moderna, to use a new approach to produce Covid vaccines.
The revolutionary technology has opened a new chapter in medicine. It could potentially be harnessed to develop vaccines against other diseases such as malaria, RSV, and HIV. It also offers a new approach to infectious diseases like cancer, with the prospect of personalized vaccines.
What is Messenger RNA?
Messenger RNA is a temporary single strand of genetic code that cells can “read” and use to produce a protein.
In the case of messenger RNA vaccines, the temporary genetic code is used to tell cells to produce a kind of “piece of virus”; thus, the body produces antibodies and special immune system cells in response. Unlike other vaccines, a live or weakened virus is not injected or needed at any time.
All that is required is the genetic sequence of the virus. Vaccine manufacturers do not even need the virus itself – just that sequence.
Source: CNN