The Karik and Weissman Prizes for mRNA Vaccines: Opening a New chapter in medicine for immunologists
“This discovery has opened a new chapter for medicine,” said Nobel committee member Qiang Pan-Hammarström, an immunologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, at a press conference following the prize announcement. “Investment in long-term basic research is very important.”
The discovery of a vaccine that used mRNA was the basis for the prize in Physiology or Medicine. The vaccines have been administered more than 13 billion times, saved millions of lives and prevented severe illness in millions of people. Karikó and Weissman discovered a way to deliver mRNA into cells without triggering an unwanted immune response: by swapping one type of molecule, uridine, in the genetic material with a similar one called pseudouridine.
Read more: After COVID-19 success, mRNA vaccine developers turn their eyes to cancer, HIV, malaria, influenza and more (Nature Medicine | 11 min read, from 2021)
They were able to deliver messengerRNA into cells without causing an immune response thanks to the research done by Karik and Weissman.
The vaccines have been administered more than 13 billion times, saved millions of lives and prevented severe COVID-19 in millions of people, said the Nobel committee.
Biochemist Katalin Karikó and immunologist Drew Weissman have won the Nobel Prize for discoveries that enabled the development of mRNA COVID vaccines. There were rare pink diamonds after the break-up of a supercontinent.
Helen Pearson, editor of Nature Magazine recommended a profile of Karik in The New York Times. “First for showing how the spectacularly fast production of COVID-19 vaccines actually rests on decades of meticulous basic research into mRNA, and second for highlighting the difficulty that many scientists face when moving precariously from one temporary position to another to pursue the bench research they love.”
The US$3-million breakthrough prize was won later that year by Karik and Weissman. Karikó recalled the scepticism surrounding her work in the 1990s that led to numerous grant-proposal and paper rejections (including the 2005 paper for which she is now being recognized), and forced her to take a demotion and a pay cut.
Pulsing Heartbeats of Mammalian Embryos in Yemen: A Problem with Mental-Health Professionals after the Nuna Breakup
The break up of the Nuna supercontinent triggered volcanic eruptions 1.3 billion years ago, and brought to the surface rare pink diamonds from Western Australia. “The diamonds are being forced to bend and twist,” says geologist and study co-author Hugo Olierook. “If they’re twisted just a little bit, it will turn some of these diamonds pink.” When Nuna split apart, it reopened a seam along a continental boundary and dredged the diamonds up from the mantle, where they were formed. Volcanic eruptions then brought the diamond-bearing melt to the surface.
The embryo’s heart seems to coordinate its first beat in a different way. In developing fish, electrical signals in surrounding tissue cause a cluster of heart cells to start beating. This triggers nearby cells to start pulsing. This is not the same as an adult zebrafish, whose heartbeat is controlled by cells in the heart’s pacemaker region.
Anjila Sultan, the head of the team of five female psychologists that provides support for women and children in Yemen’s Taiz region, says she doesn’t want to leave those who are suffering behind. Yemen has been engulfed in a civil war since 2014 and severely lacks mental-health professionals. Sultan says working in this situation requires neutrality during quarrels between different groups of people and being able to deal with questions from people who might be suspicious of our motives.
Source: Daily briefing: Medicine Nobel Prize for mRNA research
A Photon of the Year: Jack Pokoj, a Lizard Fish, in a Snub Throat
Models that have the potential to produce something similar to an intact human embryo raise serious ethical and regulatory concerns. “Researchers should ask themselves: ‘Am I making this model for strong scientific reasons?’, ‘Is there no other alternative system?’ and ‘Am I prepared to defend my work in the court of public opinion?’,” write developmental biologists Janet Rossant and Jianping Fu. embryo models can address pressing research questions as well as models that mimic certain aspects of development, they argue.
Jack Pokoj won Oceanographic’s ocean wildlife photographer of the year award for this image of a lizardfish struggling to swallow its most recent meal.