Why did this pair of scientific partners win the Nobel Prize in medicine

The research results of the two scientists are one of the important weapons for human beings to fight diseases in the future

Wen|Wang Xiao

The annual Nobel Prize will be announced successively since October 2 according to a fixed pattern and process.

First up was the Nobel Prize in Medicine, awarded this year to Hungarian woman scientist Katalin Karikó and American scientist Drew Weissman.

The duo "discovered nucleotide-based modifications that made the development of effective mRNA vaccines possible," the Nobel committee said in its justification.

mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) is like the "middleman" between DNA and proteins - it is responsible for transmitting information, and theoretically if it can manipulate the manufacture of mRNA and tell it which proteins to make, it can make its own "drug" to create a completely new therapy.

This is considered to be a relatively advanced mechanism by the academic community, and many scientists have been engaged in exploring it since the 60s of the last century. However, after more than 50 years, the experiment was stuck in a dilemma - the human immune system can always scan the incoming mRNA in time, and then destroy it, so that it loses the opportunity to function.

In animal experiments, there have also been cases of death of test animals due to the severe natural immune response of the body after mRNA injection.

Two Nobel laureates have found a way to modify mRNA to rearrange the chemical bonds on uridine, so that synthetic mRNA can be safely injected into human cells to avoid the immune system's attack.

Because this set of "camouflage methods" removed the biggest obstacle in technology, therefore, in the new crown epidemic, the new crown virus mRNA vaccine was rapidly developed and applied, so that mankind did not lose too badly in this huge crisis in health history.

This time, the mRNA vaccine also fully demonstrated its advantages, easy to design, fast production, low cost, can induce cellular immunity and humoral immunity, and does not interact with genomic DNA.

To trigger an immune response, traditional reduced- or inactivated vaccines inject weakened or inactivated viruses into the body. But mRNA vaccines are different, they just tell cells how to make a certain protein, or even a protein fragment, for the body's immune system to respond.

Traditional vaccines have a long R&D cycle and high R&D investment, making it difficult to quickly meet the vaccine demand for pandemic diseases. After three years of fighting the epidemic, it is clear that the virus mutates so quickly that new names are heard almost every few months, and it is too passive to update the inactivated vaccine behind the mutated virus. The mRNA vaccine is much faster to update, so it is theoretically more suitable for fighting the constantly mutating virus.

Using this technology, biotech companies such as Moderna in the United States and related vaccine companies in Germany have shined in the new crown epidemic. In 2013, BioNTech hired Katalin as senior vice president to help oversee mRNA efforts.

Katalin, 68, is also a professor at the University of Szeged and also holds a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania. Weisman was working with Katalin at the University of Pennsylvania.

The University of Szeged, also Katarin's alma mater, received her PhD here in 1978 and then worked at the Szeged Center for Biological Research to work on mRNA, which became her lifelong obsession.

However, in 1985, the lab where Katalin worked lost its funds, and at the age of 30, she was fired. So, the troubled Katalin and her family went to the United States in the same year. However, her scientific research career in the United States was not smooth, she repeatedly hit a wall, and her life was very difficult for a while.

It wasn't until 1997 in front of a public photocopier at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine that Katalin met his research partner Weissman. At the time, Weisman was working on a vaccine against HIV at the University of Pennsylvania, which repeatedly failed. Katalin suggested he try mRNA technology. So Weissman invited her to his lab to collaborate on mRNA vaccines.

The discovery and persistence of the two scientists is of great significance, in addition to vaccines, this technology has a large number of medical scenarios, which is one of the important weapons for human beings to fight diseases in the future.

According to media reports, after Swedish radio contacted Katalin herself, the Nobel laureate in medicine was disbelieving the news of the award. After confirming that the news was true, Katalin's first thought was of her deceased mother. She said her mother had been following the Nobel Prize results a decade earlier, "even though I wasn't even a professor at the time."

Weisman initially thought that the so-called news of the award was a joke about him. He told Swedish radio that he would invite the family out for a good dinner and then get back to work. He said he wasn't a guy who liked to party.

Since the first prize was presented in 1901, a total of 225 people have won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Unlike previous years, this year, the Nobel Foundation increased the prize for each prize by 1 million Swedish kronor, bringing the prize amount to 11 million crowns, equivalent to about 7.34 million yuan.

Responsible Editor | Zhou Jin