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Pioneers of mRNA COVID vaccines win Nobel prize for medicine
IMT News Desk
Pioneers of mRNA COVID vaccines win Nobel prize for medicine
IMT News Desk
The vaccines have been administered more than 13 billion times, saved millions of lives and prevented millions of cases of severe COVID-19
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to biochemist Katalin Karikó and immunologist Drew Weissman for discoveries that enabled the development of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
The vaccines have been administered more than 13 billion times, saved millions of lives and prevented millions of cases of severe COVID-19, said the Nobel committee.
Karikó, who is at Szeged University in Hungary, and Weissman, at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (UPenn), paved the way for the vaccines’ development by finding a way to deliver genetic material called messenger RNA into cells without triggering an unwanted immune response.
They will each receive an equal share of the prize, which totals 11 million Swedish krona (US$1 million).
Karikó is the 13th female scientist to win a Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology.
