From mRNA to electrons: Here’s who won Nobel Prizes in 2023

In May 2023, the World Health Organization declared the end of COVID-19 as a global health emergency. The pandemic claimed more than 6.9 million lives in three years.

The speed with which vaccines against the virus were produced was unprecedented. At the time of writing, more than 13.5 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered and more than 70% of the global population has received at least one dose.

Now two scientists whose research led to the development of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccines have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine, the first laureates to be named this year.

In 2005, they overcame a major hurdle in the use of messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, developing “nucleoside base modifications”, which stop the immune system from launching an inflammatory attack lab-made mRNA.

“We couldn’t get people to notice RNA as something interesting,” Weissman said. “Pretty much everybody gave up on it.”

Kariko is a former senior vice president and head of RNA protein replacement at German biotech firm BioNTech, which developed an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine with Pfizer.

“The laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” said the Nobel Assembly of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute medical university.

Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier literally shone light on the movement of electrons inside atoms and molecules, something previously thought impossible.

The trio created ultra-short pulses of light that can give a snapshot of changes within atoms, providing a tool that could help with the detection of disease molecules in blood samples.

“The ability to generate attosecond pulses of light has opened the door on a tiny, extremely tiny, time scale and it’s also opened the door to the world of electrons,” said Eva Olsson, from the Nobel Prize in Physics Selection Committee.

In the 1980s, Alexei Ekimov achieved size-dependent quantum effects in coloured glass via copper chloride nanoparticles. Louis Brus later proved this in fluid-suspended particles, while in 1993, Moungi Bawendi improved quantum dot production for practical use.

Quantum dots, luminescent nanoparticles made of semiconducting materials, are now used in everything from computer monitors and TV screens to LED lamps and the latest techniques for mapping biological tissue.

“In terms of size, it has the same relationship to a football as a football has to the size of Earth,” explained the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in a recent X (formerly Twitter) post.