Nobel Prize 2023 in Medicine: Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman win award for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines

NEW DELHI: Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman won the Nobel Prize in medicine for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Assembly, announced the prize today.

Katalin Karikó, a professor at Sagan's University in Hungary and an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Drew Weissman, performed the research together at the University of Pennsylvania.

Their research 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 panel noted.

They also discovered that base-modified mRNA can be used to block activation of inflammatory reactions and increase protein production when mRNA is delivered to cells.

“2023 medicine laureates Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman published their results in a seminal 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 panel tweeted on X.

"Through their ground breaking findings, which have 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,” the panel that awarded the prize said.

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman – awarded the 2023 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine – discovered that base-modified mRNA can be used to block activation of inflammatory reactions and increase protein production when mRNA is delivered to cells. pic.twitter.com/PssykVvaOo

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 2, 2023

Swedish scientist Svante Paabo won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was won last year for discoveries in human evolution that unlocked secrets of Neanderthal DNA which provided key insights into our immune system, including our vulnerability to severe COVID-19.

The winners will receive their awards on December 10, on the death anniversary of Alfred Nobel.

“The prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor (USD 1 million). The money comes from a bequest left by the prize creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896. The prize money was raised by 1 million kronor this year because of the plunging value of the Swedish currency,” the PTI reported.