Weissman, Drew

Weissman, Drew 1959–, b. Lexington, Mass., American Immunologist, studied at Brandeis University (B.A., M.A., 1981) and Boston University (M.D, Ph.D., 1987). He is a Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research at the Perelman School of Medicine and Director of the Institute for RNA Innovation at the Univ. of Pennsylvania. Weissman, along with Katalin Karikó, was awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery concerning nucleoside base modifications to mRNA that suppressed human immune response to mRNA when taken up by cells, which enabled the rapid development and production of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

See more Encyclopedia articles on: Medicine: Biographies