Two scientists, Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery. They found a way to change a special chemical called messenger RNA, which helped create powerful COVID vaccines in a short time. This saved many lives and helped the world during the worst pandemic in 100 years.
Their method, called mRNA, has been used in billions of COVID shots all around the world. It has also changed how we make vaccines and might even protect us from other deadly diseases like cancer someday.
But some people don’t trust these vaccines because they were developed quickly. The truth is, the research behind these vaccines took many years and happened step by step, even at the University of Pennsylvania, where Dr. Weissman works.