The 2023 Nobel Prize Awards

 

Methods for vaccine production before the COVID-19 pandemic. 

© The Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine. Ill. Mattias Karlén

The 2023 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine will go to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discovery that modifying mRNA – a form of genetic material your body uses to produce proteins – could reduce unwanted inflammatory responses and allow it to be delivered into cells. While the impact of their findings may not have been apparent at the time of their breakthrough over a decade ago, their work paved the way for the development of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, as well as many other therapeutic applications currently in development. 

As of 2023, 116 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine have been awarded to 215 men and 13 women. The first one was awarded in 1901 to the German physiologist, Emil von Behring, for his work on serum therapy and the development of a vaccine against diphtheria.

Vaccination stimulates the formation of an immune response to a particular pathogen. This gives the body a head start in the fight against disease in the event of a later exposure. Vaccines based on killed or weakened viruses have long been available, exemplified by the vaccines against polio, measles, and yellow fever. In 1951, Max Theiler was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing the yellow fever vaccine.

Yellow fever was fairly common and claimed many lives in the tropics. The disease is caused by a virus and is transmitted to people by insects and also from one person to another. Max Theiler succeeded in transmitting the virus to mice, which paved the way for more in-depth research. When the virus was transmitted between mice, a weakened form of the virus was obtained that could make apes immune. In 1937 Theiler succeeded in obtaining an even weaker variant of the virus. This variant, 17D, came to be used as a human vaccine.

The 2023 Nobel Prize in physics will go to a team of 3 scientists who used lasers to clarify the behavior of electrons, and many prior Nobels have honored basic research. Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier developed "experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter". They have given us new tools for exploring the world of electrons inside atoms and molecules.

Related reading: Tenacious curiosity in the lab can lead to a Nobel Prize; Nobel Prize 2023 Press Release