The innovation of mRNA vaccines lies not in using inactive parts of the virus but in giving the body instructions to fight it.
The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Hungarian biochemist Katalin Karikó and US immunologist Drew Weissman for developing the mRNA vaccine against COVID-19.
mRNA-based vaccines had been studied since the 1980s, but, according to the Nobel website, “the laureates have contributed to the unprecedented pace of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times.”
Before this generation of vaccines, antidotes were based on injecting a weakened or inactive part of a virus into the body. mRNA vaccines, instead, deliver genetic instructions to the body via messenger RNA, which contains information to produce a specific viral protein called the spike protein. This activates the immune system as the body recognises the protein and begins to fight it.
Compared to traditional methods, an mRNA vaccine can be produced very quickly, as evidenced by the speed with which the Sars-CoV-2 vaccination campaign began.
Karikó is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and was senior vice president of the company BioNTech until last year, while Weissman is the director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovations.
“The Nobel Prize awarded to Karikó and Weissman is a well-deserved tribute to their dedication to medical science, which has saved millions of human lives”, says Daniele Armenia, Professor of Virology and Microbiology at UniCamillus.
“An unexpected miracle, considering the testing times of previous vaccine strategies”, says Professor Armenia enthusiastically. “The Nobel Laureates’ discovery is now well-established and ready to be used not only against COVID but also against other infections or diseases such as cancer. All thanks to two great scientists who have opened the doors to this revolution. Describing this discovery to our students who will become future medical pioneers will be a great source of pride for us teachers”.
Karikó is the thirteenth woman to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine, while it is only the second time the Nobel has been awarded for a vaccine, the first being in 1951 when Max Theiler won the Prize for developing the yellow fever vaccine.