Noble Prize in Medicine
Description
Noble Prize in Medicine
Nobel Prize in Medicine Awarded for Pioneering Work on
mRNA Vaccines"
Description: "Learn how Nobel laureates Katalin
Kariko and Drew Weissman's breakthroughs in mRNA technology paved the way for
rapid COVID-19 vaccine development, revolutionizing immunization methods."
The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has gone to scientists Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman, whose work enabled the development of mRNA vaccines against Covid-19.
Points to remember:
- Nobel Prize in Medicine: Awarded to Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman for their pioneering work on mRNA vaccines for COVID-19.
- mRNA Vaccines Overview:
- Traditional vaccines used weakened or dead viruses to stimulate immune responses.
- mRNA vaccines use messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA) to instruct cells to produce the needed virus-fighting protein.
- Importance of mRNA Technology:
- In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, mRNA technology played a crucial role due to its speed and effectiveness.
- Role of Karikó and Weissman:
- They discovered that lab-made mRNA caused inflammation in dendritic cells.
- Identified the need for specific chemical changes in lab-made mRNA.
- Experiments in 2005, 2008, and 2010 showed that adding these chemical changes reduced inflammation.
- Their work laid the foundation for mRNA vaccine development, used by companies like Moderna and Pfizer for COVID-19 vaccines.
What are mRNA vaccines?
Traditionally,
vaccines have depended on introducing dead or weakened viruses into the human
body, so it can develop antibodies against them. Thus, when the actual virus
infects someone, their body is prepared to fight it. As technology evolved,
instead of the whole virus, just a part of the viral genetic code, instead of
the whole virus, began to be introduced through vaccines. But the large-scale
development of such vaccines requires cell culture (growing of cells under
controlled conditions) and takes time.
During the Covid-19 outbreak,
time was of the essence in finding a weapon against the deadly and
fast-spreading virus. This is where mRNA technology proved crucial.
This technology
had been known since the 1980s, but had not been perfected enough to create
vaccines at a viable scale. Basically, instead of putting an inactivated virus
in the body to activate an immune response, vaccines using this technology use
messenger Ribonucleic Acid, or mRNA, to deliver a message to the immune system.
Genetically engineered mRNA can instruct cells to make the protein needed to
fight a particular virus.
Role of Karikó and Weissman
They have found that when our
body's special cells, called dendritic cells, see lab-made mRNA, they think
it's something foreign and start releasing chemicals that cause inflammation.
Karikó and Weissman realized that
the reason this happens is that mRNA made in the lab doesn't have certain
chemical changes that our own body's mRNA has. So, they wondered if adding
these changes to lab-made mRNA would stop the inflammation. They did some
experiments where they made different types of mRNA with these changes and gave
them to dendritic cells. The results were amazing: When they added these
chemical changes to the mRNA, the inflammation mostly disappeared.
They first published these
findings in 2005 and continued their research in 2008 and 2010. This work was
really helpful because it laid the foundation for making mRNA vaccines. When
the world needed a vaccine for Covid-19, companies like Moderna and Pfizer used
this technology to create their vaccines.
