Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman are the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine, for their early contribution to the development of anti-Covid vaccines based on messenger RNA.
Without the work of the Hungarian Karikó and the American Weissman, the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines would not have been able to be developed, saving lives during the Coronavirus pandemic which left 15 million deaths, according to the WHO.
The announcement of the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (such as its official name) It took place this Monday morning.
The Swedish Academy awarded the award to Karikó and Weissman “for their discoveries on nucleoside base modifications that allowed the development of effective mRNA vaccines against Covid.”
“Through their innovative discoveries,” the organizers add, “they have fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system, The awardees contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times.”
Born in Szolnok, Hungary (1955), Katalin Kariko is a biochemist graduated from the University of Szeged. This researcher was co-founder and CEO of RNARx from 2006 to 2013.
For its part, Drew Weissman (Lexington, United States, 1959) is an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania, where he serves as professor of medicine at the Perelman School.
Both received the Rosenstiel 2020 Prize and the Princess of Asturias Prize for Scientific and Technical Research 2021, along with other colleagues, for his contribution to the fight against Covid.
In the 90s, Katalin Karikó proposed the idea of using RNA (ribonucleic acid) to cure patients. This acid, synthesized in the nucleus of cells, reads the instructions written in DNA and leaves with them (that’s why it is called a messenger). so that the organism produces everything necessary for existence.
Weissman, based on Karikó’s idea, promoted that the use of RNA in vaccines could produce the missing protein that causes anemia or generate an immune response to an infection.
According to the schedule, On Tuesday the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics will be announced; on Wednesday, Chemistry; on Thursday, Peace and next Monday, Economy.