The prestigious Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been bestowed upon a duo of esteemed scientists who have made significant contributions to the field by pioneering the technology that has paved the way for the development of mRNA-based Covid vaccines.
The prize will be shared by Professors Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman.
Prior to the onset of the pandemic, the technology in question was in an experimental phase. However, in the current context, it has been widely disseminated to a global audience, reaching millions of individuals.
The mRNA technique is currently under investigation for various disorders, including cancer.
According to the Nobel Prize Committee, the laureates made significant contributions to the remarkable pace of vaccine development in the face of one of the most significant challenges to human well-being in contemporary history.
Both individuals were informed of their victory over telephone earlier today and were reported to be “overwhelmed”.
Vaccines facilitate the process of immune system education, enabling it to identify and combat potential hazards, such as viral or bacterial agents.
The conventional approach to vaccine development has relied upon the utilization of inactivated or attenuated forms of the primary virus or bacterium, or alternatively, by employing fragments derived from the infectious agent.
In contrast, mRNA vaccines employ a distinct approach.
The Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines utilized mRNA technology during the Covid-19 epidemic.
Drs. Kariko and Weissman encountered each other during the early 1990s while employed at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. At that time, their shared focus on mRNA was considered a less prominent area of scientific inquiry.
RNA technology functions as a molecular translator within the human body.
The process involves the conversion of the genetic instructions encoded in DNA into the proteins responsible for the construction and functioning of our physiological systems.
The concept underlying mRNA vaccines involves the strategic infiltration of such process. If it is possible to engineer messenger RNA (mRNA) that encodes specific components of a viral pathogen or alternative infectious agent, the host organism will synthesize these exogenous proteins, so enabling the immune system to acquire knowledge on combating them.
Difficulties were encountered throughout the initial phases. Through the process of technological refinement, the researchers successfully generated substantial quantities of the desired protein while mitigating the risk of inducing excessive inflammation, as observed in previous animal trials.
This breakthrough laid the foundation for the advancement of vaccination technology in human subjects.
Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines were developed with the objective of inducing the synthesis of the viral pathogen’s distinctive “spike protein”.
Katalin Kariko currently holds a professorship at Szeged University in Hungary, while Drew Weissman continues to serve as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
