Seven honorees at once: This has never happened before in the history of the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize.

This is "thanks" to the pandemic, which prevented the award winners for 2021 from being invited to the Paulskirche a year ago.

This Monday, Paul Ehrlich's 168th birthday, the antibiotics researchers Bonnie Bassler and Michael Silverman were duly honored - together with the award winners for 2022: Özlem Türeci, Ugur Sahin and Katalin Karikó, the pioneers of the mRNA method, at the two of the corona vaccines currently in use.

All prizewinners of one year share prize money of 120,000 euros.

Sasha Zoske

Sheet maker in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The winners of the young talent awards for 2021 and 2022, each endowed with 60,000 euros, were also honored on Monday: the biologist Elvira Mass and the doctor Laura Hinze.

Using genetic labeling techniques, Mass has gained insight into how specialized immune cells in the embryo's yolk sac control the development of an organism.

Hinze found a way to overcome the resistance of leukemia cells to the chemotherapy drug asparaginase.

"Current Response"

What the main prizewinners have in common is that their work can help humanity acquire new weapons for the fight against infectious diseases – and some have already done so.

"In this year of regained presence, we honor laureates who have made a decisive contribution to overcoming the pandemic," said Thomas Boehm, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Paul Ehrlich Foundation, referring to the developers of the mRNA vaccines.

Despite a lot of resistance, the Hungarian Karikó pursued the idea of ​​using messenger RNA as a template for the production of proteins that stimulate the immune system.

Sahin and Türeci, founders of the Mainz-based company Biontech, were already testing the process for the production of new cancer drugs before the pandemic offered the opportunity to test the method's suitability for vaccinations.

The current infection figures show that the pandemic is anything but over, despite the success of vaccination.

Türeci commented at the press conference before the award ceremony on the question of when a version of the vaccine adapted to the omicron mutant would be available: It remains the case that Biontech can deliver the modified vaccine at the end of March.

Whether this happens depends on the approval.

"What the authorities want to see is a bit more extensive than we expected," Türeci said.

The required data from the clinical trials could be submitted within "a few weeks".

New antibiotics worldwide

The doctor expressed the hope that mRNA technology would also be used to develop vaccines that offer broad protection against different variants of the coronavirus.

This can be achieved by presenting the immune system with parts of viral proteins that have not changed through mutations.

This could also be virus components other than the spike protein, with which the pathogen docks to body cells.

Biontech co-founder Sahin commented on a study from Sweden, according to which mRNA can be converted into DNA in human cells - an argument that opponents of vaccination like to use to warn against alleged changes in the genetic material through immunization.

In Sahin's view, the phenomenon described by the Swedish researchers is medically insignificant.

There is no evidence that the resulting DNA is incorporated into the chromosomes.

Less present in awareness than Corona, but not to be underestimated is the threat that Michael Silverman and Bonnie Bassler have declared war on.

The two American researchers are working on antibiotic resistance: bacteria that have learned to resist such drugs pose a deadly threat to those who are ill.

Bassler and Silverman discovered that bacteria use signaling substances to communicate with each other when they attack a host organism.

If this communication can be interrupted, the pathogens are paralyzed but not killed.

In this way, no selection pressure is generated that would promote the emergence of new resistances.

The findings of the award winners are used by research colleagues worldwide to develop new antibiotics.