{"id":7749,"date":"2023-10-02T19:44:47","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T14:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/nobel-prize-in-medicine-goes-to-drew-weissman-of-u-s-hungarian-katalin-kariko-for-enabling-covid-19-vaccines\/"},"modified":"2023-10-02T19:44:47","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T14:14:47","slug":"nobel-prize-in-medicine-goes-to-drew-weissman-of-u-s-hungarian-katalin-kariko-for-enabling-covid-19-vaccines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/nobel-prize-in-medicine-goes-to-drew-weissman-of-u-s-hungarian-katalin-kariko-for-enabling-covid-19-vaccines\/","title":{"rendered":"Nobel Prize in medicine goes to Drew Weissman of U.S., Hungarian Katalin Karik\u00f3 for enabling COVID-19 vaccines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p><em>Stockholm<\/em> \u2014 The Nobel Prize in medicine has been awarded to Hungarian Katalin Karik\u00f3 and Drew Weissman of the U.S. for discoveries that enabled the development of effective mRNA <span class=\"link\">vaccines<\/span> against <span class=\"link\">COVID-19<\/span>. Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Assembly, announced the award Monday in Stockholm.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Through their groundbreaking findings, which have fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system, the laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,&#8221; the panel that awarded the prize said.<\/p>\n<p>Perlmann said both scientists were &#8220;overwhelmed&#8221; by news of the prize when he contacted them shortly before the announcement.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"embed embed--type-image is-image embed--float-none embed--size-medium\"><span class=\"img embed__content\"><img alt=\"Nobel Medicine \" height=\"413\" width=\"620\" class=\" lazyload\" srcset=\"https:\/\/assets3.cbsnewsstatic.com\/hub\/i\/r\/2023\/10\/02\/e3b3b8e7-9d2b-4593-a22c-2ff8848a732e\/thumbnail\/620x413g2\/7f774ca569f7b6dbe5bc75e7023ff1b7\/nobel-medicine-2023-ap23275354817845.jpg?v=42bbcea0e3eaab3fb7d470f54c86b0bd 1x, https:\/\/assets3.cbsnewsstatic.com\/hub\/i\/r\/2023\/10\/02\/e3b3b8e7-9d2b-4593-a22c-2ff8848a732e\/thumbnail\/1240x826g2\/f8fe4ea4da094676181ecaeed353986f\/nobel-medicine-2023-ap23275354817845.jpg?v=42bbcea0e3eaab3fb7d470f54c86b0bd 2x\"\/><\/span><figcaption class=\"embed__caption-container\"><span class=\"embed__caption\">In this April 13, 2022 file photo, Japan Prize 2022 laureates Hungarian-American biochemist Katalin Kariko, left, and American physician-scientist Drew Weissman pose with their trophies in Tokyo. The 2023 Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to the pair for enabling development of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, it was announced on Oct. 2, 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>                  <span class=\"embed__credit\"><\/p>\n<p>                Eugene Hoshiko\/AP<\/p>\n<p>                          <\/span><br \/>\n              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Karik\u00f3 said her husband was the first to pick up the early morning call, then handed it to her to hear the news. &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t believe it,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I was very much surprised. But I am very happy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<aside class=\"newsletter_signup \">\n<figure class=\"embed embed--type-newsletter-widget embed--float-none embed--size-large embed--type-iframe\" data-ads=\"{\" wordcount=\"\">\n<\/figure>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Weissman is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also serves as director of vaccine research in the Infectious Diseases Division and as director of the Institute for RNA Innovation. Karik\u00f3 is a professor at Sagan&#8217;s University in Hungary and an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p>According to Penn Medicine, they first met by chance in the 1990s while photocopying research papers, and then began working together on mRNA research, publishing\u00a0a key discovery\u00a0in 2005 showing mRNA could be harnessed to activate the body&#8217;s protective immune system.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Before COVID-19, mRNA vaccines were already being tested for other diseases like Zika, influenza and rabies, but the pandemic brought more attention to this approach, Karik\u00f3 said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There was already clinical trials before COVID, but people were not aware,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Traditionally, making vaccines required growing viruses or pieces of viruses \u2014 often in giant vats of cells or, like most flu shots, in chicken eggs \u2014 and then purifying them before next steps in brewing shots. The\u00a0messenger RNA approach\u00a0is radically different. It starts with a snippet of genetic code that carries instructions for making proteins.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Instead of growing up a virus in a 50,000-liter drum and inactivating it, we could deliver RNA and our bodies make the protein, which starts the immune response,&#8221; Weissman explained in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The mRNA approach was harnessed in the COVID vaccines developed by Moderna and by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the true value of the pair&#8217;s lab work was revealed in the most timely of ways,&#8221; Penn Medicine said in a statement. &#8220;Both Pfizer\/BioNTech and Moderna utilized Karik\u00f3 and Weissman&#8217;s technology to build their highly effective vaccines to protect against severe illness and death from the virus. In the United States alone, mRNA vaccines make up more than 655 million total doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines that have been administered since they became available in December 2020.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One study estimated that\u00a0<span class=\"link\">COVID vaccines saved nearly 20 million lives<\/span>\u00a0worldwide in their first year alone.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at Britain&#8217;s University of East Anglia, described the mRNA vaccines as a &#8220;game changer&#8221; against the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If it hadn&#8217;t been for the mRNA technology, COVID would have been much worse,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Vaccines generally were the turning point in slowing down COVID and the mRNA vaccines were just so much better than all the others,&#8221; he said, noting that a non-mRNA formula from AstraZeneca is barely in use anymore.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We would likely only now be coming out of the depths of COVID without the mRNA vaccines,&#8221; Hunter said.<\/p>\n<p>Karik\u00f3 was a senior vice president at BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer to make one of the COVID-19 vaccines. The BioNtech website says that since 2022 she has been an external consultant. She is the 13th woman to win the Nobel Prize in medicine.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Bharat Pankhania, an infectious diseases expert at Exeter University, said that a major advantage of mRNA technology was that vaccines could be made in extremely large quantities since their main components are made in laboratories.<\/p>\n<p>Pankhania predicted that the technology used in the vaccines could be used to refine vaccines for other diseases like Ebola, malaria and dengue, and might also be used to create shots that immunize people against certain types of cancer or auto-immune diseases like lupus.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s possible that we could vaccinate people against abnormal cancer proteins and have the immune system attack it after being given a targeted mRNA shot,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;It&#8217;s a much more targeted technology than has been previously available and could revolutionize how we handle not only outbreaks, but non-communicable diseases.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Nobel announcements continue with the physics prize on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the economics award on Oct. 9.<\/p>\n<p>The prizes\u00a0carry a cash award\u00a0of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million). The money comes from a bequest left by the prize&#8217;s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896.<\/p>\n<p>The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel&#8217;s death. The prestigious peace prize is handed out in Oslo, according to his wishes, while the other award ceremony is held in Stockholm.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- data-recirc-source=\"chartbeat\" --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"component list recirculation component--type-recirculation component--type-recirculation-collection\">\n<div class=\"component__heading-wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"component__title\">Coronavirus Pandemic<\/h3>\n<p>              More<br \/>\n              <svg viewbox=\"0 0 32 32\" class=\"icon__caret-right\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><use xlink:href=\"#icon-caret-down\"\/><\/svg>\n                  <\/div>\n<p>            More<br \/>\n            <svg viewbox=\"0 0 32 32\" class=\"icon__caret-right\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><use xlink:href=\"#icon-caret-down\"\/><\/svg><br \/>\n                    <\/aside>\n<p><!-- tags --><\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] Stockholm \u2014 The Nobel Prize in medicine has been awarded to Hungarian Katalin Karik\u00f3 and Drew Weissman of the U.S. for discoveries that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Assembly, announced the award Monday in Stockholm. &#8220;Through their groundbreaking findings, which have fundamentally changed our &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7749"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}