This year, the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine will be awarded on Oct. 3. Canada will be in the spotlight again, thanks to Canadian scientists’ involvement with mRNA vaccine development.

The Canada Gairdner International Award, offered to five researchers who have excelled in the medical sciences, is often considered a predictor of the Nobel Prize.

Earlier this year, the Gairdner Foundation recognized molecular biologist Pieter Cullis, biochemist Katalin Karikó and physician-researcher Drew Weissman. Cullis was recognized for the lipid nanoparticle packaging of the mRNA designed by Karikó and Weissman for the COVID-19 vaccine.

The 2022 Canada Gairdner International Awards.

mRNA vaccine development

Canada’s input into the development of functional mRNA vaccines also includes Nahum Sonenberg, a pioneer of mRNA research who was consulted in the development of Moderna’s mRNA vaccine. Sonenberg received a Gairdner International Award in 2008 for discovering how mRNA is constructed with a cap and tail to enable protein synthesis.

Moderna was itself co-founded by Derrick Rossi, who attended the University of Toronto, and Noubar Afeyan, who attended McGill University.

from BioNTech and Mod approved the Oxford vaccine. This vaccine uses an adenovirus to insert the gene for the COVID-19 virus spike protein, which stimulates an immune response that protects against COVID-19.

Molecular biologist Frank Graham pioneered the use of adenovirus to generate vaccines.

Research has estimated that 19.8 million lives were saved by the vaccines in 2021, including over 310,000 lives in Canada alone.

Undervaluing the importance of research

The recognition of exceptional scientists by the Nobel Prize committee is sadly not a value shared by our federal government today. In 2017, then Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan highlighted the need for increased funding to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to reverse the decline in Canadian research.

Read more: https://theconversation.com/canadian-scientists-made-life-saving-contributions-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-190601