mRNA vaccine for melanoma reduces relapse after therapy, trial shows
NBCAPR 2023
After 30 years of research and almost two decades since their breakthrough on mRNA, Karikó and Weissman deserve the celebration and recognition brought by a Nobel Prize. Without their research, billions of life-saving vaccines wouldn't have existed, and the pandemic may have been far worse than it was. Their mRNA-based invention has already been applied to other vaccines and therapeutics, so we can rest assured the applications of their work won't stop at COVID.
The Nobel Prize is an outdated mode of scientific recognition that was historically, and still remains, biased towards men and those working in the Western world. Additionally, rather than encouraging competition between researchers, the Nobel should be replaced with an award that incentivizes cooperation and values other sciences like mathematics and artificial intelligence as well as medicine and physics.