Nobel Prize goes to scientists behind mRNA Covid vaccines
Nobel Prize goes to scientists behind mRNA Covid vaccines
Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman developed the technology which led to Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines.
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As they should. Not only for covid, but the development of mRNA vaccines in general opens the gate for more effective vaccines in the future.
It's an absolute game changer.
People tried to compare the COVID vaccine development time to previous vaccines without understanding the difference in how the mRNA vaccines are made. You essentially just need to sequence the virus's genome (which is miraculously easy to do these days because of other amazing people's incredible efforts), then target a protein from the virus's exterior and use that snippet in the mRNA vaccine. This radically reduces the time it takes to develop a vaccine as well as increase it's effectiveness because of the control you have over the vaccine's selected target.
Does CRISPR help the development of the vaccines in any way?
My understanding is that that's what's used to extract the targeted protein marker from the virus genome, so not only does it help, it's a key component in developing an mRNA vaccine.