Hungarian researcher Katalin Kariko and her American colleague Drew Weissman were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine on Monday for their advances in the field of messenger RNA vaccines, decisive in the fight against COVID-19.
The two scientists, cited among the big favorites, were distinguished “for their discoveries concerning the modifications of the nucleic bases which allowed the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19”, announced the jury.
“The winners have contributed to the development at an unprecedented pace of vaccines in response to one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” he added.
Kariko and Weissman, longtime colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, have already won several prestigious awards for their research, including the Lasker Award in 2021, often considered a precursor to the Nobel.
By rewarding the duo, the Nobel committee is breaking from its usual practice of rewarding research dating back several decades.
Their decisive discoveries date back to 2005 and the first messenger RNA vaccines against COVID-19 were then manufactured by the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna laboratories.
In the midst of a pandemic, many people have become familiar with the principle of messenger RNA vaccines: they focus on a small part of the virus – in the case of SARS-CoV-2, the so-called “Spike” protein – and aim to inject into the body strands of genetic instructions, called messenger RNA, instructing the body to make this protein.
Harmless in itself, this “spike” of the coronavirus is then detected by the immune system which will produce antibodies.
Iranian women honored?
Throughout history, the Nobel Prize in Medicine has awarded major discoveries such as X-rays, penicillin, insulin and DNA, but also lobotomy and the insecticide DDT, which have now fallen into disgrace.
For the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday, the properties of twisted graphene or the IceCube neutrino observatory in Antarctica return among the areas in the spotlight, as does the development of high-density data storage in the field of spintronics, which exploits the quantum property of electron spin.
For the Chemistry Nobel on Wednesday, the director of the Clarivate institute believes that next-generation DNA sequencing could be rewarded.
NR radio’s Lars Brostrom favors US-based biologist Omar Yaghi and his work on metal-organic networks (MORs) and their porous properties for absorbing dangerous gases, “an important area for the future “, particularly for the environment.
Among the names up for the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday are Russian writer and Kremlin opponent Lyudmila Ulitskaya, avant-garde Chinese writer Can Xue, and Salman Rushdie, the famous British writer prosecuted by a fatwa .
The shadow of the war in Ukraine and a fragmented world community hangs over the Nobel Peace Prize, the flagship award whose winner will be named Friday in Oslo.
Some are pleading for Iranian women who are showing their anger and, for some, falling behind the veil since the death of the young Mahsa Amini who died in September 2022.
Others propose rewarding those who investigate war crimes committed in Ukraine.
“I think climate change is an excellent choice for the Nobel Peace Prize this year,” said the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Dan Smith.
The Nobel Prize in Economics will conclude the season on October 9.