The 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine will go to Hungarian biochemist Katalin Karikó and American immunologist Drew Weissman, who contributed to the development of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines against Covid-19, it was announced on Monday in Stockholm, Sweden .
“The discoveries of the two Nobel laureates were fundamental to the development of effective mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 during the pandemic that began in early 2020,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
He also mentions this to the academy “Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman’s discoveries led to the approval of two blockbuster mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines in late 2020. The vaccines have saved millions of lives and prevented serious illness in many more.”
“Because of his groundbreaking discoveries, that has fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system, the laureates have contributed to the unprecedented speed of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” emphasizes the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The findings in 2023 #Nobel Prize Laureates Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman led to the approval of two highly successful mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines in late 2020. The vaccines have saved millions of lives and prevented serious illness in many more people.
– The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 2, 2023
American physician and researcher Drew Weissman conducted his award-winning research together with Karikó at the University of Pennsylvania, said Nobel Assembly Secretary Thomas Perlmann, who announced the prize in Stockholm.
The two researchers observed that dendritic cells recognize mRNA as a foreign substance ‘in vitro’, leading to its activation and the release of inflammatory signaling molecules. They wondered why mRNA transcribed ‘in vitro’ was recognized as foreign, while mRNA from mammalian cells did not elicit the same response.
“Karikó and Weissman realized that some critical properties should distinguish different types of mRNA,” the statement says.
In research, they produced several mRNA variants, each with unique chemical changes to their bases, which they delivered to dendritic cells. “The results were surprising: the inflammatory response was almost eliminated when the base modifications were incorporated into the mRNA,” he points out.
“This was a paradigm shift in understanding how cells recognize and respond to different forms of mRNA. Karikó and Weissman immediately understood that their discovery had profound significance for the use of mRNA as therapy.” adds.
These results were published in 2005, fifteen years before the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Amazed” by the Nobel Prize in Medicine
The secretary of the Nobel Prize for Medicine, Thomas Perlmann, stressed that the two scientists were “delighted” to receive the news that they would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine when he contacted them shortly before the announcement.
Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam, who was part of the panel that chose the winners, said that “the discovery they made was very important in terms of saving lives, especially in the early phase of the pandemic.”
The duo will receive the award at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the date marking the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), who created these awards and is presented to those who have worked for the ‘benefit of humanity’. , according to the will expressed in his will.
Katalin Karikó was born in 1955 in Szolnok, Hungary. After receiving his PhD from the University of Szeged in 1982, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Temple University, Philadelphia, and the University of Health Sciences, Bethesda, as indicated in the Swedish Academy’s press release. .
In 1989, she was appointed assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where she remained until 2013. became vice president of BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals, the pharmaceutical company responsible for one of the vaccines against Covid-19. Since 2021, she is a professor at the University of Szeged and an adjunct professor at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.
Drew Weissman received his PhD from Boston University in 1987 and was born in Lexington, Massachusetts, USA in 1959. He attended Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard University School of Medicine after completing postdoctoral research at the National Institutes of Health. In 1997, Weissman founded a research group at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. He is director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovations, the academy says.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Svante Pääbo, a Swedish biologist specialized in evolutionary genetics who managed to sequence the genome of the Neanderthal, a human species that became extinct 30,000 years ago.
The winners of the Physics (Tuesday), Chemistry (Wednesday), Literature (Thursday) and Peace (Friday) prizes will be announced during the week. The announcement of the distinction in the field of Economic Sciences is scheduled for the 9th.
This year’s Nobel Prize winners will receive an additional million Swedish kronor, bringing the total amount received by the winners to 11 million Swedish kronor (approximately 925 thousand euros).
With Lusa
Source: DN
