October 03, 2023 7:35 AM
NEW YORK – When it became clear in early 2020 that the Sars-CoV-2 virus posed a pandemic threat, researchers who had been exploring using messenger RNA to develop vaccines saw an opportunity.
Covid-19 shots made this way were the first to demonstrate efficacy, and they have proved to be the most effective vaccines against the disease.
Two scientists, Katalin Kariko and Dr Drew Weissman, whose research laid the groundwork for their development won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday.
The performance of the vaccines, from Moderna and the Pfizer/BioNTech partnership, has raised hopes among scientists that mRNA technology will prove useful against other diseases.