Nobel Prize Awarded , to COVID Vaccine Scientists.
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have received
the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for
their contributions to mRNA vaccines.
Their work played a crucial role in helping to slow the spread of COVID-19, CNN reports.
The announcement was made on Oct. 2.
According to the Nobel Prize committee, the scientists'
work "fundamentally changed our understanding of
how mRNA interacts with our immune system.".
The laureates contributed
to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times, Nobel Prize committee, via statement.
Karikó and Weissman's findings
received little attention when
they were first published in 2005, .
but came to lay the groundwork for
developments amid the pandemic, CNN reports.
but came to lay the groundwork for
developments amid the pandemic, CNN reports.
mRNA vaccines together with other COVID-19 vaccines have been administered over
13 billion times. Together they have saved millions of lives, prevented severe COVID-19, reduced the overall disease burden and enabled societies to open up again, Rickard Sandberg, a member of the Nobel Prize
in medicine committee, via statement.
The impressive flexibility and speed with which mRNA vaccines can be developed pave the way for using the new platform also for vaccines against other infectious diseases, Nobel Prize committee, via statement.
Both scientists are professors at the University of Pennsylvania