The Novo Nordisk Foundation supports the mRNA conference in Szeged. Journalists curious about the details of the November 2024 event and the latest scientific findings about the messenger molecule that offers extraordinary possibilities had the opportunity to ask questions, among others, to Nobel Laureate Katalin Karikó, who joined the press conference online on September 12.
Today, mRNA has become a promising tool in medical technology. The molecule transports information from DNA to the protein synthesis factory in our cells and tells them what to produce. The improvements made by Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, who also built on the results of other scientists, improved the performance of the "messenger RNA" by incorporating a new building block. Their work, with the collaboration of several researchers including Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, who founded BioNTech in Germany, culminated in the development of vaccines.
By the end of 2019, clinical trials had demonstrated that nanoparticles containing modified mRNA packaged in lipids are an effective vaccine against a range of viral diseases. This technology became the basis for modern vaccines against Covid-19, which have saved millions of lives and helped control the pandemic of the novel coronavirus.
Developers of mRNA technology have been recognized worldwide with numerous individual and joint scientific awards. The co-winners of the Novo Nordisk Prize 2022, the research foursome Kariko - Weissman - Şahin - Türeci, have received, in addition to the prize money, funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the world's richest corporate philanthropic foundation, to organize a scientific conference.
The mRNA conference, unique in Hungary and of outstanding importance in Central and Eastern Europe, will be hosted by the University of Szeged on November 7-8, 2024. It is a great honor for SZTE and the Hungarian research community that Katalin Karikó, her Nobel Laureate American research colleague Drew Weissman, and the CEO of BioNTech, Uğur Şahin will visit Hungary, more precisely Szeged, to give a lecture on the occasion of the international meeting. They will be joined by 13 other leading mRNA researchers from the UK, USA, France, Belgium, Sweden, Poland, Switzerland, and universities in Hungary. The speakers will present the latest advances in the field.
The conference will be attended by Martin Ridderstråle, Senior Vice President of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, and Jørgen Frøkiær, Chairman of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Prize Committee.
The website for the mRNA conference in Szeged is now live and registration is open.
A press conference on the mRNA symposium, supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, was held by the host, the University of Szeged, on Thursday, September 12, 2024, at 14:00. Katalin Karikó joined the press conference online.
SZTEinfo
