The ‘fathers’ of the covid vaccine are the stars of the Nobel Prizes

At the beginning of 2020, a pandemic broke out COVID-19. Today, almost four years later, they got it Nobel Prize in Medicine Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, scientists who laid the groundwork for the rapid development of messenger RNA-based vaccines that have saved millions of lives.

Both researchers, together with the other winners, received the medal that accredits them as new Nobel Prize winners from the hands of Swedish King Carl Gustavat a ceremony held this Sunday at the Concert Hall in Stockholm, on the same day that Alfred Nobel’s death is commemorated.

During the ceremony, the winners do not speak, and when receiving the award they only bow three times: to the monarch, members of the academies and the public, and then the Hungarian biochemist Karikó and the American immunologist Weissman received the longest applause and closed.

On this occasion, seven men and three women took the place of honor. The fourth era Narges Mohamnadiimprisoned in Iran and who started a new hunger strike today, and who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded a few hours earlier in Oslo.

President of the Nobel Foundation, Astrid Soderberghshe opened the event by recalling the activist against the oppression of women in Iran, imprisoned “along with many other prisoners of conscience” in Evin prison in Tehran, and repeated her message: “Victory is not easy, but it is certain.”

And of the ten new Nobel Prize winners present in Stockholm, he assured that they testify, “each of them in a unique way”, about the power of science and literature. “They show us that, individually and together, we have the ability to change the world.”

The ceremony started a few minutes before, with attendance Kings Carlos Gustavo and Silvia, along with Crown Princess Victoria and her husband, Prince Danielas well as some 1,560 guests.

Karikó and Weissman earned the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discoveries about messenger RNA that, 15 years later, “enabled the development of vaccines that helped control a devastating pandemic and saved millions of lives,” said Gunilla Karlsson, of the Nobel Assembly.

The pandemic has increased citizens’ trust in science, as well as their awareness and knowledge “about infectious threats”. Basic research by the new Nobel laureates “no doubt contributed to that,” Karlsson said.

IN ChemistryFrench Moungi Bawendi, American Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov (former Soviet Union) discovered and synthesized quantum dots, which made a “decisive” contribution to the field of nanoscience and are already being used to improve screens or mark tumor tissue during surgery.

He Nobel Prize for Physics It was for Frenchman Anne L’Huillier and Pierre Agostini and the Hungarian Ferenc Krauszfor his work on the generation of attosecond light pulses with lasers and thus researching the dynamics of electrons inside atoms.

L’Huillier is the fifth woman in the history of these awards to win in physics. Living in Sweden, where she does her university work, the king greeted her at length when he presented her with a medal and a diploma.

American Claudia Goldin is the third woman to achieve this in economics and the first to do so alone in this category. Her research “radically changed what we know about women in the labor market and the way we understand what we know,” noted Kerstin Englo of the Nobel Committee.

Norwegian playwright and novelist Jon Fosse He won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his ability to “give voice to the unspeakable,” noted Anders Olsson of the Nobel Committee.

The author “Septology” He uses the simplest words and writes about experiences with which we all identify: separation, death, the vulnerability of love, but he is also – he pointed out – “the master of ambivalence and the unresolved. In their world, uncertainty pulses with a secret light.”

A group of several dozen people gathered around the Concert Hall, reminding with photos and banners that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate is in prison and demanding her release.

Almost alongside them, another group, brought together by the organization Scientist Rebellion, drew attention to climate change and warned that COP28 in Dubai could be “another failure”.