Scientists behind development of mRNA vaccines used to fight Covid win Nobel Prize

Hungarian-American biochemist Katalin Kariko and American physician-scientist Drew Weissman. Credit: AP

Two scientists who were instrumental in the development or mRNA vaccines that were used to fight the Covid-19 pandemic have been awarded a Nobel Prize.

Hungarian-American Katalin Karikó and American Drew Weissman were cited for contributing "to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health," according to the panel that awarded the prize in Stockholm.

The panel said the pair's "groundbreaking findings fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system."

the pair have worked together for years. Credit: AP

Traditionally, making vaccines required growing viruses or pieces of viruses and then purifying them before the next steps.

The messenger RNA (or mRNA) approach starts with a snippet of genetic code-carrying instructions for making proteins. Pick the right virus protein to target, and the body turns into a mini vaccine factory.

In early experiments with animals, simply injecting lab-grown mRNA triggered a reaction that usually destroyed it.

Those early challenges caused many to lose faith in the approach, Weissman said, adding: "pretty much everybody gave up on it".

But Karikó, a professor at Szeged University in Hungary and Weissman, of the University of Pennsylvania, figured out a tiny modification to the building blocks of RNA that made it stealthy enough to slip past immune defences.

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Karikó, who is 68, is the 13th woman to win the Nobel Prize in medicine.

She was a senior vice president at BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer to make one of the Covid-19 vaccines.

"The future is just so incredible," Weissman said. "We’ve been thinking for years about everything that we could do with RNA, and now it’s here."

Karikó said her husband was the first to pick up the early morning call, handing it to her to hear the news.

Katalin Karikó said she did not believe the news when she was first told she had won. Credit: AP

She was then the one to break the news to Weissman, since she got in touch before the Nobel committee could reach him.

Both scientists thought it was a prank at first, until they watched the official announcement.

"I was very much surprised but I am very happy," Karikó said.

The two have collaborated for decades, with Karikó focusing on the RNA side and Weissman handling the immunology: "We educated each other," she said.

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Dr. Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, described the mRNA vaccines made by BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna Inc. as a "game changer" in shutting down the coronavirus pandemic, crediting the shots with saving millions of lives.

"We would likely only now be coming out of the depths of Covid without the mRNA vaccines," Dr Hunter said.

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John Tregoning, of Imperial College London, called Karikó "one of the most inspirational scientists I have met."

Her work together with Weissman "shows the importance of basic, fundamental research in the path to solutions to the most pressing societal needs," he said.

The duo's pivotal mRNA research was combined with two other earlier scientific discoveries to create the Covid-19 vaccines.

Scientists have predicted 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 immunise people against certain types of cancer or auto-immune diseases.

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