Nobel Prize awarded to Covid vaccine scientists

Two scientists who discovered the technology used in developing effective Covid-19 vaccines have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman will share the prize for their work leading to the mRNA Covid vaccines, which played a pivotal role in savings lives during the pandemic that claimed millions around the world.

Vaccines generally train the immune system of the body to recognise and fight infections such as viruses or bacteria.

Traditional vaccine technology uses dead or weakened versions of the original virus or bacterium to do so.

In contrast, mRNA or messenger Ribonucleic Acid vaccines tell the body how to make a protein that produces immunity to fight specific microbe like the virus that causes Covid.

mRNA vaccines are considered safer because they do not contain any whole microbes, alive or dead, and therefore cannot transmit any infection.

The technology was experimental before the pandemic. During the Covid pandemic, the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines were both based on mRNA technology. Millions of people around the world have been vaccinated.

The same mRNA technology is now being researched for other diseases, including cancer and malaria.

Initially rejected

Dr. Karikó and Dr. Weissman, who met at the University of Pennsylvania in 1998, published their work on mRNA IN 2005, transforming vaccine technology.

Their paper was rejected by the journals Nature and Science, according to the New York Times, but was eventually accepted by a publication called Immunity.

Later, biotech companies Moderna, in the United States, and BioNTech, in Germany took interest in the work, using it to try to develop vaccines for flu, cytomegalovirus and other illnesses. None passed clinical trials for years unit coronavirus came in 2019.