Nobel Prize 2023 In Medicine Awarded To Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman (image-twitter/nobelprize)
The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
The Noble Assembly announced that through the ground-breaking findings the laureates have contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times by fundamentally changing our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system, reports Reuters.
Kariko was senior vice president and head of RNA protein replacement at BioNTech until 2022 and had since acted as an adviser to the company. She is also a professor at the University of Szeged in Hungary and adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. While, Drew Weissman is a Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research and Director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovations.
Kariko found a way to prevent the immune system from launching an inflammatory reaction against lab-made mRNA, previously seen as a major hurdle against any therapeutic use of mRNA.
Together with Weissman, she showed in 2005 that adjustments to nucleosides, the molecular letters that write the mRNA”s genetic code, can keep the mRNA under the immune system”s radar.
The mRNA based vaccine elicited a robust immune response. High levels of antibodies were produced that has the capability to attack a specific infectious disease which the body has not previously encountered. Unlike the other vaccines, this vaccine does not require a live or attenuated virus to be neither injected nor used at any point, says Penn Today.
The most prestigious award in the scientific world is selected by the Nobel Assembly of of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute medical university consisting of 50 professors and also comes with 11 million Swedish crowns which is about 1 million dollars.
The remaining five awards in different categories will be unveiled soon in the coming days.
The prizes, first handed out in 1901, were created by Swedish dynamite inventor and wealthy businessman Alfred Nobel, and are awarded for achievements in science, literature and peace, and in later years also for economics.
