Spotlight on synthetic tissues and mRNA for chemistry Nobel

The development of mRNA vaccines, “bioorthogonal chemistry” or even artificial skin are some of the discoveries tipped for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry announced Wednesday, which experts consider a shot.

The winner (or winners) of the prestigious award will be revealed by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm at 11:45am (0945 GMT) at the earliest.

Last year, the academy honored Germany’s Benjamin List and US-British dual-national David MacMillan for developing an accurate molecular construction tool known as asymmetric organocatalysis.

Thought they were among the favorites for the drug award announced Monday — which went to Swedish paleogeneticist Svante Paabo — the pioneers of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines could see their work gripping the chemistry category instead.

Hungarian biochemist Katalin Kariko and American immunologist Drew Weissman — whose work served as the basis for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccines — are also favorites for the chemistry prize.

They could be honored along with Canadian Pieter Cullis, another mRNA expert.

long wait

While many hope the mRNA vaccines, which have already delivered billions of doses, will receive a Nobel Prize, it’s unlikely, according to Linus Brohult, editor of the science department at Swedish public broadcaster SVT.

“Nobel commissions tend to wait a long time before awarding a prize,” he told AFP.

Brohult also noted that mRNA vaccines are in development and could be used in other areas, such as cancer prevention.

“mRNA vaccines could be even bigger in a few years, and then they’re going to want to include the ones that have been part of that development,” Brohult said.

Although underrepresented in the Nobel Prize in science, and after not a single woman was crowned in the science categories last year, experts polled by AFP still cite a number of female researchers as potential Nobel candidates, including Kariko.

David Pendlebury, head of research analysis at the Institute for Scientific Information in Clarivate — an organization that closely monitors potential science laureates — said American Carolyn Bertozzi was a likely winner for chemistry this year.

Pendlebury told AFP that “she coined the term and helped develop what is known today as bioorthogonal chemistry,” which refers to chemical reactions that take place in living systems without interfering with biochemical processes.

Bertozzi could potentially share the prize with American Stephen J. Lippard, an expert on the role of metal ions in biology, which is used, for example, in the development of cancer treatments.

Brohult also thinks that American molecular biologist Bonnie Bassler, a specialist in intercellular communication, has a good chance of winning a Nobel Prize this year.

Artificial skin

Zhenan Bao, a chemical engineering professor at Stanford University, could also be awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry this year, according to Brohult.

The Chinese-American and her team have invented an “artificial electronic skin” by developing materials for stretchable circuits and flexible batteries.

Another skin-related area that may get the nod is that of tissue engineering thanks to the American trio of Cato Laurencin, Kristi Anseth and Robert Langer.

The latter is known for developing technologies that allow drugs to be delivered directly to diseased tissues without the use of needles or other invasive measures.

One man reportedly in the running is American Barry Sharpless, who is also in a position to achieve the rare feat of taking a second Nobel Prize after winning the first in 2001.

Not counting organizations, only four people have done so, starting with the Polish-born Frenchwoman Marie Curie.

He could be awarded the prize for so-called “click” chemistry, a term he coined that refers to the use of molecules that are easy to link together.

It is also speculated that in recent years Japan’s Susumu Kitagawa and Makoto Fujita and American-Jordanian Omar Yaghi are in the running, who are considered to be pioneers of metal-organic frameworks that allow the storage of large amounts of gas without the need for high pressures. is.

On Monday, the drug prize went to Paabo for his discoveries about the genome of extinct hominins and human evolution.

On Tuesday, physicists Alain Aspect of France, John Clauser of the United States and Anton Zeilinger of Austria were awarded the physics prize for developing experimental tools that helped prove quantum entanglement — a phenomenon Albert Einstein dismissed as “ghostly action at a distance.”

The chemistry prize is followed by the popular literature and peace prizes, which will be announced on Thursday and Friday respectively.

The peace prize is expected to have special significance this year, given the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

© 2022 AFP