Daily briefing: Medicine Nobel Prize for mRNA research

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mRNA vaccines pioneers win Nobel

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to biochemist Katalin Karikó and immunologist Drew Weissman for discoveries that enabled the development of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines against COVID-19. The vaccines have been administered more than 13 billion times, saved millions of lives and prevented severe illness in millions of people. Karikó and Weissman discovered a way to deliver mRNA into cells without triggering an unwanted immune response: by swapping one type of molecule, uridine, in the genetic material with a similar one called pseudouridine.

In 2021, in this newsletter, Nature Chief Magazine Editor Helen Pearson recommended a profile of Karikó in The New York Times. “First for showing how the spectacularly fast production of COVID-19 vaccines actually rests on decades of meticulous basic research into mRNA, and second for highlighting the difficulty that many scientists face when moving precariously from one temporary position to another to pursue the bench research they love.”

Later that year, Karikó and Weissman won one of the most lucrative awards in science: the US$3-million Breakthrough Prize. Karikó recalled the scepticism surrounding her work in the 1990s that led to numerous grant-proposal and paper rejections (including the 2005 paper for which she is now being recognized), and forced her to take a demotion and a pay cut.

Nature | 5 min read

Read more: After COVID-19 success, mRNA vaccine developers turn their eyes to cancer, HIV, malaria, influenza and more (Nature Medicine | 11 min read, from 2021)

Reference: Immunity paper (from 2005)

Many advances were necessary to achieve COVID-19 vaccines based on mRNA, and hundreds of scientists had worked on mRNA vaccines for decades before the breakthrough. (Nature | 21 min read) (Nik Spencer/Nature; Adapted from M. D. Buschmann et al. Vaccines 9, 65 (2021))

When Earth spewed pink diamonds

Western Australia’s unusual pink diamonds were brought to the surface by the break-up of Nuna, an ancient supercontinent, which triggered volcanic eruptions 1.3 billion years ago. “The diamonds are being forced to bend and twist,” says geologist and study co-author Hugo Olierook. “If they’re twisted just a little bit, it will turn some of these diamonds pink.” When Nuna split apart, it reopened a seam along a continental boundary and dredged the diamonds up from the mantle, where they were formed. Volcanic eruptions then brought the diamond-bearing melt to the surface.

Scientific American | 5 min read

Reference: Nature Communications paper

Video: The first heartbeat

An embryo’s heart seems to coordinate its very first beat quite haphazardly. In developing zebrafish (Danio rerio), naturally occurring electrical signals in surrounding tissue activate a random cluster of heart cells, which start beating. This triggers nearby cells to start pulsing. This is different from an adult zebrafish’s heartbeat, which is tightly controlled by cells in the heart’s pacemaker region.

Nature | 4 min video

Reference: Nature paper

Features & opinion

One psychiatrist for half a million people

“It is my duty not to leave behind those who are suffering as a result of painful experiences and severe psychological crises,” says Anjila Sultan, who heads a team of five female psychologists that provides support for women and children in Yemen’s Taiz region. Yemen has been engulfed in a civil war since 2014 and severely lacks mental-health professionals. “Working in such conditions requires neutrality during quarrels between different parts of the population, and the ability to deal quietly with questions from people who might be suspicious of our motives,” Sultan explains.

Nature | 6 min read

Use human embryo models with caution

Models that have the potential to produce something similar to an intact human embryo raise serious ethical and regulatory concerns. “Researchers should ask themselves: ‘Am I making this model for strong scientific reasons?’, ‘Is there no other alternative system?’ and ‘Am I prepared to defend my work in the court of public opinion?’,” write developmental biologists Janet Rossant and Jianping Fu. Often, models that mimic only certain aspects of development can address pressing research questions as well as embryo models can, they argue.

Nature | 9 min read

Futures: Fear of the dark

Living things made of dark matter trigger the worst instincts of normal-matter people in the latest short story for Nature’s Futures series.

Nature | 6 min read

Image of the week

Jack Pokoj won Oceanographic’s ocean wildlife photographer of the year award for this image of a lizardfish struggling to swallow its most recent meal.

See more of the month’s sharpest science shots, selected by Nature’s photo team.