October 2, 2023, 00:06 AM | Update: 6:32 a. m.
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Two scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for their discoveries that led to the creation of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines that have played a critical role in slowing the pandemic and could be used in the future. In the long term expand vaccines against non-infectious diseases. Infectious diseases such as cancer.
Hungarian-American Katalin Karikó and American Drew Weissman were awarded for contributing “to the unprecedented speed of vaccine progression at a time when it constitutes one of the greatest threats to human health,” according to the jury that awarded the prize in Stockholm.
What is the Nobel Prize for?
The panel said the couple’s “groundbreaking discoveries” . . . they have fundamentally replaced our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system.
Traditionally, vaccine production required developing viruses or virus fragments and then purifying them before the next steps. Messenger RNA begins with an extract of genetic code that contains commands to make proteins. Choose the right viral protein to target and the frame will become a mini-vaccine factory.
But simply injecting lab-grown mRNA into the frame triggered a reaction that destroyed it. Karikó, a professor at the University of Szeged in Hungary and assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania discovered a small replacement in RNA’s building blocks that made it stealthy enough to evade immune defenses.
Karikó, 68, is the thirteenth woman to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine. She was senior vice president of BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer to manufacture one of the COVID-19 vaccines. Kariko and Weissman, 64, met by chance in the ’90s while photocopying study documents, Kariko told The Associated Press.
WHY ARE MRNA VACCINES IMPORTANT?
Dr. Paul Hunter, a professor at the UK’s University of East Anglia, described mRNA vaccines manufactured through BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna Inc. as a “game changer” in preventing the coronavirus pandemic, and gave them credit for saving millions of lives.
“We wouldn’t get out of the depths of COVID now without mRNA vaccines,” Hunter said.
Dr. Bharat Pankhania, an infectious disease expert at the University of Exeter, predicted that the generation used in vaccines could be used for better vaccines against other diseases such as Ebola, malaria and dengue, and could also be used to create immunizing vaccines. Other people oppose certain types, cancer, or autoimmune diseases, including lupus.
Peter Maybarduk of the Washington-based advocacy organization Public Citizen celebrated the popularity of mRNA vaccines but said the award would also be deeply embarrassing for Western countries.
“This is a generation that has been available to all of humanity, but it was only available almost exclusively in the richest countries in the world,” he said, adding that much of the investment that led to the advancement of mRNA generation was made here from the United States. Public funds.
HOW DID KARIKÓ AND WEISSMAN REACT?
“The long term is amazing,” Weissman said. We’ve been thinking for years about what we could do with RNA, and now it’s here. “
Karikó said her husband was the first to answer the call early in the morning and deliver it to her to hear the news. Then he looked at the advertisement to make sure it wasn’t a joke.
“I’m very surprised. But I’m very happy.
Kariko said she was the one who broke the news to Weissman, as she contacted him before the Nobel committee and maybe get it.
The two have been involved for decades: Kariko focuses on RNA and Weissman deals with immunology: “We have trained others,” she says.
Before COVID-19, mRNA vaccines were already being tested for diseases such as Zika, influenza, and rabies; however, the pandemic has brought more attention to this approach, Karikó said.
“There were already clinical trials before COVID, but other people weren’t aware of it,” he said.
Karikó’s family circle is no stranger to great honors. His daughter, Susan Francia, is a two-time Olympic gold medalist in rowing and competes for the United States.
The prize is endowed with 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million), from a legacy left by the creator of the prize, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. The winners are invited to win their prizes at the ceremony to be held on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. .
The Nobel announcements continue with the physics prize on Tuesday, the chemistry prize on Wednesday and the literature prize on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday and the prize on October 9.
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This story has been updated to clarify the fact that Karikó is a professor at the University of Szeged, not Sagan University.
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Associated Press editors Maria Cheng in London, Maddie Burakoff in New York and Lauran Neergaard in Washington contributed to this report.
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