Reacción a "Reactions: Nobel Prize in Physiology awarded to Karikó and Weissman for their discoveries that led to the development of effective mRNA vaccines against covid-19"

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has positioned immunology and vaccinology in a central place worldwide in the context of infections and has generated an urgent need to develop safe and effective vaccines. Thanks to their discoveries, Drs. Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have been able to propose a tool that opens up the possibility of designing messenger RNA vaccines in the context of infections (and even in other diseases), allowing this type of vaccine to be developed with unusual speed and great efficiency. In fact, it is worth remembering that the mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 was developed thanks to the previous development of antitumor vaccines which could be a major advance in the short term.   

All of this has been crucial, as immunization through vaccination has allowed us to face and largely resolve the COVID-19 pandemic, saving millions of lives worldwide. We hope that the urgency criteria for the approval of these vaccines will be imposed on the regulatory authorities, since for many patients the situation is a "personal emergency" (many will die in the years it will take for these approvals to be granted) and they cannot wait the long periods imposed by the current regulatory standards. For example, the fact that the mRNA sequence is considered to be very different product, and the need to start the approval processes for it, slows down its implementation (as evidenced by the fact that we cannot implement mRNA from SARS-CoV-2 variants that are more prevalent than those that were approved at the time). We have great opportunities to improve the health of our citizens if we prioritize urgency and logic in the treatment of cancer, many infections and even many other immune-mediated diseases that have no available therapeutic options. Drs. Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have opened a door to improving health across the planet.