SCIENTISTS behind the mRNA technology used in the Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines have won a Nobel Prize.
Professor Katalin Kariko and Dr Drew Weissman, both from the University of Pennsylvania, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday.
It is one of the top accolades in science and comes with a £823,000 prize for them to share.
The pair published studies between 2005 and 2010 that showed genetic material made in a lab, called mRNA, could be injected without the immune system attacking it.
When the Covid pandemic struck more than a decade later, this meant vaccine companies had a blueprint to make jabs in record time.
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Experts working with Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna strapped this blank mRNA to the genetic code to trigger Covid immunity and made their vaccines.
Older jab types use dead or damaged versions of viruses themselves, which can make side effects more likely.
Vaccines based on the professors’ findings helped end the global coronavirus crisis and saved millions of lives.
The Nobel Prize Committee said: “Through their groundbreaking findings, the laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times.”
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, chair of the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and co-inventor of the Oxford-Astrazeneca jab, praised the pair.
He said: “It is absolutely right that the ground-breaking work by Kariko and Weissman should be recognised by a Nobel Prize.
“Their scientific endeavours have made an extraordinary advance for vaccine development.”