The Nobel Assembly announced the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Karikó and Weissman for mRNA vaccine discoveries.
On October 2, 2023, the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute announced that Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
This announcement represented the culmination of a scientific journey that began decades earlier, when Karikó's research into synthetic mRNA was widely dismissed and repeatedly denied funding, forcing her to accept demotions and precarious academic positions in pursuit of a technology she believed could revolutionize medicine.
As only the thirteenth woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine since its inception in 1901, Karikó's award was historic both for its scientific substance and for what it represented: the recognition of a Hungarian-born immigrant scientist whose unconventional career path defied the traditional trajectories rewarded by academic science.
The Nobel Committee specifically credited Karikó and Weissman's insight — that modifying mRNA nucleosides could prevent dangerous immune overreactions while enabling effective protein production — as the key breakthrough underlying the rapid global deployment of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, technology credited with saving millions of lives during the pandemic.