mRNA Global Leaders in One Frame
On November 7th and 8th, 2024, the mRNA conference was held at the University of Szeged, Hungary. This conference featured prominent scientists in the field of mRNA, including Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine, Katalin Karikó, and Mustafa (pbuh) Prize laureate, Uğur Şahin.
MSTF Media reports, the mRNA conference at the University of Szeged hosted a number of prominent figures in the field who gave speeches and shared their experiences. Scientists such as Drew Weissman, a Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine in 2023, and Katalin Karikó, also a Nobel laureate that year, were invited to explain their mRNA achievements to the audience.
Uğur Şahin, co-founder of BioNTech, was also one of the speakers. In 2019, He was awarded the Mustafa (pbuh) Prize in Tehran for developing and clinically testing mRNA-based cancer vaccines tailored to individual patients based on their specific mutations.
This conference not only provided an opportunity for young researchers in the mRNA field to learn but also had a friendly atmosphere that allowed old colleagues to reunite. Ms. Katalin Karikó had been a colleague of Uğur Şahin at BioNTech for about nine years, and this conference was an occasion for them to be seen together again after a long time.
They first met in 2013 during a trip Karikó made to Germany. Where Uğur Şahin's suggested them to collaborate on mRNA research at BioNTech. In 2022, Katalin Karikó returned to her home country, and their collaboration took on a new form. Since then, Ms. Karikó has maintained her connection with Uğur Şahin and other colleagues at BioNTech as an external consultant.
Ms. Karikó and Mr. Weissman won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2022 for their discoveries regarding nucleoside base modifications that enabled the creation of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. Uğur Şahin was awarded the Mustafa (pbuh) Prize in 2019 for his achievements in developing mRNA-based cancer vaccines.
The COVID-19 pandemic began while Uğur Şahin and his colleagues at BioNTech were working on RNA-based vaccines to provide personalized cancer treatment. This available technology allowed them to quickly develop mRNA vaccines against the COVID-19 virus. The joint vaccine of this company with Pfizer, which played a significant role in combating the pandemic, is known as BNT162b2.
In recent months, the clinical trial of BioNTech's BNT116 vaccine, which is used to treat a type of lung cancer, has also garnered significant attention in scientific media.
