Skip to main content

COVID-19 Vaccine Pioneers Awarded Nobel Prize for Medicine

Medically reviewed by Drugs.com.

By Physician’s Briefing Staff HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Oct. 2, 2023 -- This year's Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine has been awarded to two scientists who laid the groundwork years ago for the mRNA research that made COVID-19 vaccines possible.

Katalin Karikó, M.D., the 13th woman to ever receive the honor, and Drew Weissman, M.D., began working together at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1990s, according to a news release from the Nobel Prize Committee.

Their scientific achievement was a modification to mRNA. That chemical change made it possible for Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna to develop and provide more than 650 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines between them. Their discovery "fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system," the panel that awarded the prize said, adding that the work "contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times."

Karikó emigrated from Hungary to the United States in the 1970s when her research program at a Hungarian university ran out of money, The New York Times reported. She was focused on the possibilities of mRNA, which provides instructions to cells to make proteins, despite the belief by many that it was not clinically usable. Weissman was a physician and virologist when they met, looking for a new approach to a vaccine for HIV.

The pair worked together to see if mRNA might work for the HIV vaccine. But cells destroyed the delicate mRNA instantly in numerous mouse experiments, with the immune system detecting mRNA and seeing it as a pathogen. Together the scientists discovered that cells use a specific chemical modification to protect their own mRNA. They made this chemical tweak to mRNA in the lab and added it to cells, and the idea worked.

This was not an idea that interested the mainstream at that time, and the authors published the paper on their research in the journal Immunity after it was rejected by more prominent journals, The Times reported. But BioNTech and Moderna were interested and began studying mRNA vaccines for flu and cytomegalovirus, among other illnesses in clinical trials. The full potential of mRNA vaccines was not realized until COVID-19 hit.

The New York Times Article

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Posted October 2023

Further Support and Information on COVID-19

Read this next

No Evidence That Live Vaccines Are Unsafe for Patients on Dupilumab

FRIDAY, June 14, 2024 -- There is no evidence to suggest that administration of live vaccines to patients receiving dupilumab is unsafe, and vaccine efficacy is not affected by...

Residual Risk Seen for Death, Postacute Sequelae in Third Year After COVID-19 Hospitalization

THURSDAY, June 13, 2024 -- For individuals with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, the risks for death and postacute sequelae of COVID-19...

Systemic Side Effects of COVID-19 Vaccine Tied to Greater nAB Response

TUESDAY, June 11, 2024 -- Short-term systemic side effects of the severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) mRNA vaccine are associated with greater long-lasting...

More news resources

Subscribe to our newsletter

Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.