Nobel Prize for mRNA vaccines: 5 things to know

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Two pioneering scientists who created the technology behind life-saving Covid-19 vaccines have won the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology.

Dr. Katalin Karikó and Dr. Drew Weissman, both of the University of Pennsylvania, achieved their breakthrough by harnessing the power of genetic material known as messenger RNA, or mRNA.

Their discoveries have opened up a new chapter in medicine, paving the way for new vaccines for other infectious diseases, including the flu, and treatments for noninfectious diseases such as cancer.

Here are five things to know about Karikó and Weissman's game-changing research and mRNA vaccines.

Messenger RNA, or mRNA, is a form of nucleic acid that tells cells what to do based on the information contained in DNA.

Unlike DNA, which acts as an instruction manual for life contained in every cell, mRNA is a temporary piece of genetic code that can create a protein or repair damage. Researchers often use a cookbook analogy. DNA is a thick recipe book, while RNA is the handwritten copy of an individual recipe that gets scrunched up and thrown away after use.