They paved the way to corona vaccination: Kariko and Weissman win the Nobel Prize for Medicine

This year, Hungarian-born researcher Katalin Karikó and American Drew Weissman will receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their fundamental work on mRNA vaccines against Covid-19. The Karolinska Institute announced this in Stockholm on Monday.

“Through their groundbreaking results that have fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with the human immune system, the laureates have contributed to the unprecedented pace of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” the Nobel Committee said . .

The impressive flexibility and speed with which mRNA vaccines can be developed paves the way for the new platform to be used for vaccines against other infectious diseases. “In the future, the technology could also be used to deliver therapeutic proteins and treat certain types of cancer.”

“Several other vaccines against Sars-CoV-2, using different methods, have also been rapidly introduced, and in total more than 13 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide,” the committee said. “The vaccines have saved the lives of millions of people and prevented serious illness in many more, allowing societies to open up and return to normal conditions.”

Katalin Karikó, born in Hungary in 1955, currently works at the Universities of Pennsylvania/USA and Szeged/Hungary, and Drew Weissman (64) at the University of Pennsylvania/USA.

The corona vaccines from the Mainz company Biontech and the American company Moderna were the first two mRNA products to hit the market. However, researchers were already working on the technology more than thirty years ago. In the late 1980s, three scientists – Robert Malone, Phil Felgner and Inder Verma – introduced mRNA into cultured cells using fat droplets and caused them to produce the desired protein.

But genetic engineering soon emerged and a lot of money was invested in it. However, Katalin Karikó, who was doing research in Hungary at the time, continued to believe in the benefits of mRNA for medicine. She stayed true to the molecule even when she emigrated to the US in 1985.

Due to a lack of funding, Karikó initially conducted research in the laboratory largely alone, and from 1998 also with Drew Weissman. The decisive breakthrough came for the research duo when they exchanged part of the mRNA and the mRNA was subsequently no longer broken down in the cell. The experimental mice produced the desired protein.

Despite further setbacks, Karikó continued her path and in 2013 met Ugur Sahin, who had founded Biontech with his wife Özlem Türeci. He offered her a job that same day, Karikó told the New York Times. After many years of collaboration, she left the company and has only been an advisor since the beginning of October 2022.

With mRNA, a new class of substances is available for medicine, the chairman of the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI), responsible for vaccines and biomedicine, Klaus Cichutek, told the German news agency dpa. The mRNA in the vaccines is the blueprint for a viral protein. This is produced in a few cells in the vaccinated person’s body. The immune system then targets this protein.

PEI President Cichutek sees possible future areas of application for mRNA as other preventive vaccines, such as those against influenza, but also as therapies against cancer and rheumatism.

According to the Association of Research-Based Drug Manufacturers, there were five mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 in use worldwide as of September 2023. The development of corresponding vaccines against influenza and cytomegaloviruses, which belong to the herpes viruses, is also quite advanced.

The Nobel Prize cycle began with the Medicine Prize. The winners of the physics and chemistry prizes will be announced on Tuesday and Wednesday. These are followed by those for literature and for peace. The series of announcements ends next Monday with the so-called Nobel Prize in Economics, sponsored by Sweden’s Riksbank.

The ceremonial presentation of all prizes traditionally takes place on December 10, the anniversary of the death of prize founder Alfred Nobel. The winners of this year’s Alternative Nobel Prizes were announced last Thursday by the Right Livelihood Foundation.

The most important award for doctors was increased by one million to 11 million Swedish crowns (950,000 euros) in 2023. (sda/dpa)