Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman won the Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for work on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology that paved the way for groundbreaking Covid-19 vaccines.
The pair, who had been tipped as favourites,"contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times," the jury said.
In honouring the duo this year, the Nobel committee in Stockholm broke with its usual practice of honouring decades-old research to ensure it stands the test of time. The idea was first demonstrated in 1990, but it wasn't until the mid-2000s that Weissman, of the US, and Hungarian-born Kariko developed a technique to control a dangerous inflammatory response seen in animals exposed to these molecules, opening the way to develop safe human vaccines.
"She listened year after year. Unfortunately five years ago she passed at the age of 89. She might be listening from above." First though, she had to overcome the problem of the massive inflammatory response in animal experiments, as the immune system sensed an invader and rushed to fight it.
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