This year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their work on mRNA vaccines, which were crucial in curtailing the spread of Covid-19.

Karikó and Weissman published their results in a 2005 paper that received little attention at the time, the Nobel Prize committee said, but later laid the foundation for critically important developments that served humanity during the Covid pandemic.

The committee praised the scientists' "groundbreaking findings" which "fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system."

"The laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times," the committee added in a statement.

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