The Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman. The two scientists have created the basis for mRNA vaccines that have been used in the fight against Corona.
Last year, the Swedish researcher Svante Pääbo, who works in Leipzig, won the prize for his findings on the evolution of humans and their extinct relatives. Among other things, he was the first to sequence the Neanderthal genome.
The Nobel Prize in Medicine traditionally begins the annual awards ceremony. In the following days, the other Nobel Prize winners will be announced in the categories of physics, chemistry, literature, peace and economics. The Nobel Peace Prize is the only one that is not announced in Stockholm, but in Oslo.
The Nobel Prizes will all be presented ceremoniously on December 10th, the anniversary of the death of the dynamite inventor and prize donor Alfred Nobel (1833-1896). This year, the awards are endowed with prize money of eleven million Swedish crowns (around 950,000 euros) per category. That is one million crowns more than in previous years.
The Nobel Prizes go back to Nobel’s will. They are intended to honor those who have provided the greatest benefit to humanity in each category in the previous year. The awarding institutions usually do not pay close attention to the time limit.
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