Nobel Prize for medicine awarded to scientists who paved the way for mRNA vaccines

The Nobel Prize committee said Monday it will honor two scientists whose findings laid the groundwork for messenger-RNA vaccines that were used to fight COVID-19.

Based in Sweden, the committee said Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman will receive the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.

“The findings by 2023 Nobel Prize laureates Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman led to the approval of two highly successful mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines in late 2020. The vaccines have saved millions of lives and prevented severe disease in many more,” the committee wrote on X.

Ms. Kariko, a Hungarian American biochemist, and Mr. Weissman, an American doctor, are professors at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ms. Kariko, 68, is the 13th woman to win the Nobel Prize in medicine. She was a senior vice president at BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer to make one of the COVID-19 vaccines. Ms. Kariko and Mr. Weissman, 64, met by chance in the 1990s while photocopying research papers, she told The Associated Press.

The pair discovered that modified mRNA could block the activation of inflammatory reactions and increase protein production when it is delivered to cells. In essence, the body can use genetic instructions from mRNA to identify a virus’s spike protein and combat it when the actual pathogen arrives.

Their findings were published in a 2005 paper that “received little attention at the time but laid the foundation for critically important developments that have served humanity during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the Nobel committee said.

Vaccines using mRNA had not been widely deployed until the COVID-19 pandemic. Shots from Moderna and Pfizer remain the leading options for people seeking vaccination against the virus.

The duo’s mRNA research was combined with two other earlier scientific discoveries to create the COVID-19 vaccines. Researchers in Canada had developed a fatty coating to help mRNA get inside cells to do its work. And studies with prior vaccines at the U.S. National Institutes of Health showed how to stabilize the coronavirus spike protein that the new mRNA shots needed to deliver, the AP reported.

Some Americans were disappointed the mRNA vaccines did not seem to block infection and transmission outright, and others were worried about side effects such as myocarditis in boys and young men.

Others were skittish about the brand-new nature of using mRNA in widespread fashion for the first time.

Government officials in the Trump and Biden administrations stressed that the use of the mRNA platform was based on over a decade of research into the technology.

Hundreds of millions of mRNA shots have been given to Americans and persons worldwide.

COVID-19 is still circulating, but rates of severe disease and hospitalization are at lower points than in previous years, as persons acquire immunity from vaccination or prior infection, and the Biden administration is promoting updated booster shots this fall.

The researchers say their research promises to provide more breakthroughs in the years to come.

“The future is just so incredible,” Mr. Weissman said. “We’ve been thinking for years about everything that we could do with RNA, and now it’s here.”

World Health Organization Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus hailed the scientists who will be given a prize for their early work on mRNA.

“Their dedication to science helped save lives,” Mr. Tedros posted on X.

Nobel Prize announcements continue with the physics prize on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the economics award on Oct. 9.

• This article was based in part on wire service reports.

For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.