The 2023 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine has gone to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their work on how mRNA interacts with our immune system, which was instrumental in the development of covid-19 vaccines
By Clare Wilson
2 October 2023
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have been awarded the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine
Niklas Elmehed/Nobel Prize Outreach
Two scientists whose work led to the mRNA vaccines against covid-19 have been awarded the 2023 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine.
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman were awarded the prize for their work on chemically changing strands of mRNA, which made it possible to use them in vaccines.
The technology was licensed by US biotech firm Moderna as well as German biotech firm BioNTech – where Karikó went to work – which then collaborated with the multinational Pfizer. This led to two of the main covid-19 vaccines used in high-income countries, from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech.
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mRNA is a “messenger” molecule that allows genetic information stored in DNA, in the cell nucleus, to be transported to protein-making factories called ribosomes elsewhere in the cell.
There had long been interest in using mRNA medically to instruct human cells to manufacture proteins that they would not normally make. But if artificially synthesised mRNA is injected into the body, it looks similar to mRNA produced by bacteria – and so is destroyed by various immune chemicals.
While at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1990s, Karikó and Weissman worked out a way to chemically tweak synthesised mRNA so that it looks like the version naturally made by mammalian cells – and so avoid the immune attack.