NOBEL PRIZE 2023 (MEDICINE) (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 – Sci & Tech)

Context: Recently, the 2023 Nobel Prize for Medicine was jointly awarded to United States scientists Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman for their pioneering research on nucleoside base modifications that paved the way for the development of highly effective messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines against COVID-19.

Nobel Prize

• Established by: Alfred Nobel (inventor of Dynamite)
• Awarded to those who have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind, during the preceding year
• First awards were handed out in 1901.
• Field: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Economics, and Peace.
• Prize Ceremony is held: Stockholm, Sweden, in December every year 
• Prize: Gold medal, a diploma, and a monetary award

oNobel Prize cannot be given posthumously (after death). 

• First Indian Nobel Laureate: Rabindranath Tagore for Literature, 1913.
• First Indian Woman Nobel Laureate: Mother Teresa for Peace, 1979

Messenger RNA (mRNA)

• About: It is a type of single-stranded RNA involved in protein synthesis.

omRNA is made from a DNA template during the process of transcription.

oThe role of mRNA is to carry protein information from the DNA in a cell’s nucleus to the cell’s cytoplasm (watery interior), where the protein-making machinery reads the mRNA sequence and translates each three-base codon into its corresponding amino acid in a growing protein chain.