The 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine has been awarded to Hungarian scientist Katalin Karikó and American researcher Drew Weissman, honoring their revolutionary research in the field of messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA) vaccine against COVID-19, as announced by the Swedish Nobel Academy on Monday.
The committee responsible for selecting the winners stated that the researchers were granted the award “for their discoveries related to nucleotide modifications that enabled the development of effective vaccines against COVID-19 based on messenger RNA.”
Furthermore, the winners have contributed at an unprecedented rate to the development of vaccines amidst one of the largest threats to human health in modern times.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Swedish paleogeneticist Svante Pääbo, acknowledging his role in determining the complete sequence of the genome of the “archaic human” and in establishing this specialization, which seeks to study DNA dating back to ancient fossilized remains to understand the characteristics of human genes in bygone eras, thereby illuminating current human genes.
The check accompanying the award is valued at 11 million kronor (about 980,000 dollars), marking the highest nominal value (in Swedish currency) in the history of the Nobel Prizes, which were established over a hundred years ago. The Nobel Foundation announced last September that it would add one million Swedish kronor (approximately 90,000 dollars) to the amount received by the winners of its prizes, as it is now financially capable of doing so.
The Nobel season will continue in Stockholm on Tuesday with the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Physics, followed by Chemistry on Wednesday, Literature on Thursday, and Peace on Friday – the latter being the only prize announced in Oslo.
