2023-10-02 12:08:50
This year, the Hungarian-born researcher Katalin Karikó and the American Drew Weissman will receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their fundamental work on mRNA vaccines against Covid-19. The Karolinska Institute announced this on Monday in Stockholm. “Through their groundbreaking results that fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with the human immune system, the laureates contributed to the unprecedented pace of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” said the Nobel Committee.
The impressive flexibility and speed with which mRNA vaccines could be developed paves the way for the use of the new platform for vaccines against other infectious diseases. “In the future, the technology could also be used to deliver therapeutic proteins and treat certain types of cancer.”
“The vaccines have saved millions of people’s lives”
“Several other vaccines against Sars-CoV-2, based on different methods, have also been rapidly introduced, and in total more than 13 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide,” the committee said. “The vaccines have saved the lives of millions of people and prevented serious illnesses in many more, allowing societies to open up and return to normal conditions.” Katalin Karikó, born in Hungary in 1955, currently works at the universities of Pennsylvania/USA and Szeged /Hungary, Drew Weissman (64) at the University of Pennsylvania/USA.
The corona vaccines from the Mainz company Biontech and the American company Moderna were the first two mRNA products to come onto the market. However, researchers were working on the technology more than 30 years ago. Back at the end of the 1980s, three scientists – Robert Malone, Phil Felgner and Inder Verma – introduced mRNA into cultured cells using fat droplets and caused them to produce the desired protein.
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But genetic engineering soon emerged and a lot of funding went into it. However, Katalin Karikó, who was researching in Hungary at the time, continued to believe in the benefits of mRNA for medicine. She remained loyal to the molecule even when she emigrated to the USA in 1985. Due to a lack of funding, Karikó initially conducted research in the laboratory largely on his own, and from 1998 also with Drew Weissman. The research duo achieved the decisive breakthrough when they exchanged a component of the mRNA and the mRNA was then no longer broken down in the cell. The experimental mice produced the desired protein.
Despite further blows, Karikó continued on her path and in 2013 met Ugur Sahin, who had founded Biontech with his wife Özlem Türeci. He offered her a job that same day, Karikó told the New York Times. After years of working together, she left the company and has only been its advisor since the beginning of October 2022.
With mRNA, a new class of substances is available for medicine, said the President of the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI), which is responsible for vaccines and biomedicine, Klaus Cichutek, to the German press agency dpa. The mRNA in the vaccines is the blueprint for a viral protein. This is produced in a few cells in the body of the vaccinated person. The immune system then targets this protein. PEI President Cichutek sees possible future areas of application for mRNA as other preventative vaccines such as those against influenza, as well as therapies against cancer and rheumatism.
Joachim Müller-Jung Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 4 Published/Updated: Recommendations: 6 Sibylle Anderl Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 9
According to the Association of Research-Based Drug Manufacturers, five mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 were in use worldwide by September 2023. The development of corresponding vaccines against influenza and cytomegaloviruses, which belong to the herpes viruses, is also quite advanced.
Every year, the Nobel Prize season follows the same pattern: after the medicine category, the prize announcements in physics and chemistry take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner will be chosen on Friday – this is the only Nobel Prize that will not be announced in the Swedish capital Stockholm, but in the Norwegian capital Oslo. Back in Stockholm, the Nobel Prize in the economics category will follow on the following Monday.
The Nobel Prizes go back to the will of the dynamite inventor and prize donor Alfred Nobel (1833-1896). They are intended to honor those who have provided the greatest benefit to humanity in each category in the previous year. The awarding institutions usually do not pay close attention to the time limit. The prizes are traditionally presented on December 10th, the anniversary of Nobel’s death.
One thing is different this year than in previous years: the prize money distributed per category has been increased by the Nobel Foundation by one million Swedish crowns to now eleven million crowns. According to the latest exchange rate, that is around 950,000 euros.
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