Honoring and recognizing Katalin Karikó, PhD and Drew Weissman, MD PhD for winning the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Honoring and recognizing Katalin Karikó, PhD and Drew Weissman, MD PhD for winning the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine. WHEREAS, Dr. Katalin Karikó is a senior vice president at BioNTech and an adjunct professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Karikó received her bachelor's degree in biology in 1978 and her doctorate in biochemistry in 1982 from the University of Szeged in her native Hungary. She was working at the Biological Research Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Szeged before immigrating to the United States in 1985; and WHEREAS, Dr. Drew Weissman is the Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. Before joining Penn in 1997, Dr. Weissman was a fellow at the National Institutes of Health studying HIV in the lab of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Dr. Weissman received his bachelor's degree and master's degree from Brandeis University. Dr. Weissman earned his MD and PhD from Boston University and completed his residency at Beth Israel Hospital; and WHEREAS, After a chance meeting in the late 1990s, while photocopying research papers, Dr. Karikó and Dr. Weissman began investigating mRNA as a potential therapeutic. In 2005, they published a key discovery: mRNA could be altered and delivered effectively into the body to activate the body’s protective immune system; and WHEREAS, mRNA-based vaccines elicited a robust immune response, including high levels of anti…