Two Pennsylvania Doctors Win Nobel Prize In Medicine

STOCKHOLM (AP) — The MRNA vaccines developed to fight Covid-19 were created through the work of two University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine doctors,  The two scientists have won the Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries that enabled the creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 and that could be used to develop other shots in the future. Hungarian-American Katalin Karikó and American Drew Weissman were cited for contributing vaccine development during what the panel that awarded the prize called “one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times.” The panel said the pair changed “our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system.” Simply injecting lab-grown mRNA into the body triggered an inflammatory reaction that usually destroyed it. Karikó and Weissman figured out a tiny modification to the building blocks of RNA that made it stealthy enough to slip past those immune defenses.