The Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman

[just444]

BREAKING NEWS
The 2023 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/Y62uJDlNMj
- The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 2, 2023

sourceFor their

Comments

[yami_no_hoshi]

well deserved!

I read a while back that the breakthroughs in mRNA vaccines have led to breakthroughs for other diseases/viruses besides Covid. SCIENCE! <3

[popcoins]

Yes! All sorts of applications. Apparently mRNA vaccines had been around a while… I want to say since the 90s… but they hadn’t been adapted to these other disease applications for reasons (I want to say like… stability or autoimmunity or smthg). It seems like they discovered how to do that!!

I’m so glad for this breakthrough, what fantastic progress that we can all benefit from!

[yami_no_hoshi]

that's so amazing!! one discovery leads to another and another.

[nefertitii]

its not the mRNA vaccines that have been around, its the idea. but research and scientists thought it was scientific backwater. mrna isnt stable, and being injected led to a crazy, uncontrolled immune response. but a handful of scientists were sure they could be used as vaccines/drugs, and their entire focus was on how to keep the molecule stable and not evoke a strong immune response.

katalin and drew figured out how

[5368f65]

Yeah, their main research area was cancer treatment. It's a super versatile idea. If it wasn't for crappy funding, this could revolutionize so many areas of medicine... It's awesome that these vaccines have hit the markets, but there's so much more in the works. Eg. regenerating muscles after heart attacks, destroying tumors (also cancer that has attacked other organs than its origin, much, much less side-effects compared to chemo), malaria vaccine, HIV vaccine, etc etc

I love that the vaccines have hit the shelves already, but it's painful to see how slow the rest is going. Well, at least it's going now...