Washington Post The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded Monday to two scientists whose research laid the groundwork for messenger RNA vaccines that transformed the threat of the coronavirus pandemic.
Early in her career, Katalin Kariko, 68, a Hungarian-born scientist, saw mRNA’s medical potential and pursued it with ferocious and single-minded tenacity that exiled her to the outskirts of science. After a chance meeting over the photocopier at the University of Pennsylvania 25 years ago, she worked closely with Drew Weissman, 64, an immunologist who saw the potential for the technology to create a new kind of vaccine.
Today, the power of messenger RNA is obvious: It is the backbone of coronavirus vaccines that were developed in record time, providing a crucial shield of protection that helped save millions of lives and allowed people to reunite safely with loved ones. But for decades, the idea that this fragile genetic material could be a medicine was a tantalizing, unlikely possibility dangling at the margins of mainstream science. Kariko and Weissman’s complementary knowledge helped to unravel a way to chemically tweak messenger RNA, turning basic biology into a useful medical technology ready to change the world when the pandemic struck. Their discovery is incorporated into the coronavirus vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, which have now been administeredbillions of times.