Nobel Prize 2023

The Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 2023 was awarded to Katalin Kariko (Hungary) and Drew Wiseman (USA) for the discovery of modifications of nitrogenous bases (nucleotides) in DNA, which made it possible to develop effective matrix RNA vaccines against COVID-19.

“The discoveries of the two Nobel laureates were critical to the development of effective matrix RNA vaccines against COVID-19 during the pandemic that began in 2020. Thanks to revolutionary discoveries that fundamentally changed our understanding of how matrix RNA interacts with the human immune system, the laureates made a significant contribution to the unprecedented pace of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in our time,” the Nobel Committee said. .

Katalin Kariko was born in 1955 in Szolnok (Hungary). She was vice president and then senior vice president of BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals. Since 2021, she is a professor at the University of Szeged and an adjunct professor at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.

Drew Wiseman was born in 1959 in Lexington (Massachusetts, USA). In 1997, Weisman founded a research group at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research and Director of the Pennsylvania Institute for RNA Innovation.