The Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded the vaccine revolution

2023-10-04 12:25:34

This week they began to deliver the 2023 Nobel Prize winners. On Monday, the first winners (in the Physiology or Medicine category) were the Hungarian biochemist Katalín Kariko and the American immunologist Drew Weissmanfor a high-impact development for humanity: messenger RNA-based COVID-19 vaccine. It is also a recognition of the tenacity of a scientist who spent her life in the shadows.

After four decades of research, receiving dozens of rejections from pharmaceutical companies to fund his research and even losing his position at the university, Karikó saw how – in the worst of the pandemic crisis – his efforts finally helped save millions of livesthanks to a technology applied in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

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RNA is in cells and is an essential molecule for life. When synthesized, it reads the instructions written in the DNA and activates the mechanisms so that the organism’s “factories” produce everything necessary to exist. Karikó always assumed that the mRNA pcould be used to cure the sickin such a way that they produced proteins that prevented anemia or generated immune responses against different infections.

Together with Weissman, who focused his research on vaccine production, They managed to modify the mRNA in such a way that it was stable, “straining” it into the cells through nanoparticles. Once that milestone was achieved, they realized that it was capable of generating strong immune responses; a potentiality that found its takeoff during the coronavirus pandemica very specific virus against which vaccines ended up being highly effective.

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These researchers not only contributed to appeasing the last great planetary nightmare; His work also promises a revolution in the medium term. The Academy jury recalled that its vaccines can be developed with “impressive flexibility and speed”with results so promising that in the future they could also be applied against some types of cancer.

JL