The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023 was awarded jointly to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman "for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19"
As noted and cited in the hacker news thread, this is notable for Kariko’s story, where, IIRC, she struggled to get academic positions because her ideas were not recognised as valuable and ended up having to move to a private corporation, namely biontech, which was behind the vaccine we all know.
Real indictment of where academia is up to TBH that this person is winning a Nobel. Yes, COVID was a chance opportunity to demonstrate the technology. But new and experimental ideas is what publicly funded academic research is for.
As noted and cited in the hacker news thread, this is notable for Kariko’s story, where, IIRC, she struggled to get academic positions because her ideas were not recognised as valuable and ended up having to move to a private corporation, namely biontech, which was behind the vaccine we all know.
Real indictment of where academia is up to TBH that this person is winning a Nobel. Yes, COVID was a chance opportunity to demonstrate the technology. But new and experimental ideas is what publicly funded academic research is for.