An unlikely pair: The 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine

An unlikely pair of scientists won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

“Everybody who knows us knows that we are very different. I am talkative and bubbling. Drew is more scientific.”

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet credits Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their groundbreaking findings, ‘which have fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system.’

Their discoveries enabled the rapid development of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. All stemming from a chance meeting in the late 1990s.

“It’s actually funny the way Kati and I met back in those days. The only way you could read journal articles is you had a photocopy them out of the journal and we would fight over the copy machine to be able to read articles.”

“We started working on RNA to try and understand why it was so inflammatory. We were both completely open minded.”

After decades of painstaking work in the field and dozens of government grant rejections, a research paper was published in 2005. The laureates discovered mRNA could be altered and delivered effectively into the body to activate the body’s protective immune system. In turn, the mRNA-based vaccines prompted high levels of antibodies that attack a specific infectious disease. Unlike other vaccines, a live virus is not injected or required at any point.

On the heels of a massive breakthrough Karikó and Weissman co-founded RNARx in 2006.  They were dedicated to developing modified mRNA for therapy. Shortly after, RNARx received a business grant for less than $100,000 for treating anemia. That eventually helped them develop their technology. Two years later their research grant summed $799,425.

“When we started this, we weren’t thinking about curing pandemics. We were thinking about making new vaccines. We had five phase one clinical trials of different M RNA vaccines that we were working on before COVID 19 ever hit. And we knew at that time that this had the potential to be an incredible vaccine.”

Karikó and Weissman had eliminated critical obstacles on the way to clinical applications of mRNA. Their patent on modified mRNA was the foundation for the vaccines that received FDA approval first for emergency use in late 2020 and subsequently for regular use in 2021. 

“Finally, we figured out how to make it non inflammatory.”

In the United States alone, mRNA vaccines make up more than 655 million total doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines that have been administered since they became available in December 2020.

By the end of 2021, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) said 12 billion vaccines were produced worldwide. Six months later, production was estimated to reach 24 billion.

“We couldn’t have come to the result without both of us being involved.”

“I was really happy when people wrote me emails and said that they could see their parents and family members. They could meet each other.”

During his grand rounds presentation at cornell medicine this year, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “Barely noticed scientific advances in the decades before the COVID-19 pandemic proved crucial to rapidly producing vaccines that—despite disappointing national uptake—are estimated to have prevented an additional 3.25 million American deaths from the virus.”

With the success of mRNA COVID vaccines researchers are now exploring other uses. Clinical trials are underway for flu, RSV, Zika virus, HIV and cancer vaccines.