布兰迪斯大学祝贺校友魏斯曼荣获2023诺贝尔生理医学奖

【波士顿双语网2023年10月2日讯】魏斯曼（Drew Weissman, MD, PhD) 医学博士、哲学博士是宾州大学医学院（Penn Medicine）的世界知名医生和研究员，以其对 RNA 生物学和 COVID-19 疫苗的贡献而闻名。他和合作者 Katalin Karikó 博士发明了改良的 mRNA 技术，用于辉瑞 BioNTech 和 Moderna 的疫苗中以预防 COVID-19，因此获得2023年诺贝尔生理医学奖。

在 1997 年加入宾夕法尼亚大学之前，韦斯曼是美国国立卫生研究院的研究员，在安东尼·福奇博士的实验室研究艾滋病毒。韦斯曼在麻州布兰迪斯（Brandeis）大学获得学士和硕士学位。他在波士顿大学获得医学博士和博士学位，并在贝斯以色列医院完成了住院医师实习。

15 多年前，魏斯曼博士和 Karikó 在宾州大学医学院找到了一种修饰 mRNA 的方法，后来开发了一种将 mRNA 包装在称为脂质纳米颗粒的脂肪滴中的递送技术。这确保了它可以到达身体的适当部位并触发免疫系统对抗疾病。

这些实验室突破使得 mRNA 可以安全、有效且实用地用作新冠疫苗。辉瑞-BioNTech COVID-19疫苗于2021年8月获得FDA批准，Moderna COVID-19疫苗已获得FDA紧急使用授权。

魏斯曼博士和他的团队目前正在研究一种泛冠状病毒疫苗，以阻止下一次冠状病毒的流行，一种通用流感疫苗和一种预防疱疹的疫苗。他们正在与宾夕法尼亚大学的同事合作，利用 mRNA 技术开发癌症疗法。魏斯曼的实验室还与泰国朱拉隆功大学合作开发 SARS-CoV-2 mRNA 疫苗，以帮助泰国和财力比美国少的其他周边国家的居民获得救生疫苗。

布兰迪斯大学教育对魏斯曼影响深远

魏斯曼博士在mRNA 领域的开创性工作导致了挽救生命的疫苗接种，改变了 COVID-19 大流行的进程，并与合作者 BioNTech RNA 高级副总裁 Katalin Karikó一起获得了诺贝尔生理学或医学奖 药品。

“正是在这里，我从夏皮罗大厅的一年级开始磨练了我的批判性思维能力，并在格里·法斯曼教授的生物化学实验室培养了我对科学探索的热情，”魏斯曼博士在讲话中说道。“作为一名活跃的学生、校园成员和兼职活动家，我了解了协作和开放思想的价值。”

布兰代斯和罗森斯蒂尔基金会于 2021 年 2 月向韦斯曼和卡里科授予第 50 届基础医学研究刘易斯·罗森斯蒂尔奖。两人还获得了著名的临床医学研究拉斯克奖。

“魏斯曼博士在mRNA 方面的开创性研究是科学的真正突破。通过他富有远见的工作，他不仅改变了大流行的进程，而且提高了人类的知识和理解，从而影响了子孙后代的疫苗研究。他的非凡成就是我们这个时代最伟大的科学成就之一。”布兰代斯大学校长罗恩·利博维茨说。

魏斯曼博士是麻州莱克星顿人，跟随他年轻时对科学的热情来到了布兰迪斯。他学习了生物化学和酶学，满足了医学预科要求，并开始了一生的研究，从杰拉尔德·法斯曼教授的实验室开始。在课堂和实验室之外，他与其他学生一起参与环境和种族正义以及投票权活动。

“来到布兰迪斯扩大了我的学习范围。我学习了政治、心理学、社会学、音乐、戏剧和歌剧。在我毕业后的这些年里，所有这些事情都在继续扩大。所以，我认为这确实拓宽了我的视野，”他在 2021 年获得布兰代斯校友成就奖时说道。“但我的主要关注点是在实验室做研究，那是我最快乐的地方。”

魏斯曼毕业于布兰迪斯大学，获得学士和硕士学位，随后在波士顿大学获得博士学位和医学博士学位。研究生毕业后，魏斯曼博士在贝斯以色列女执事医疗中心完成了住院医师实习，并在美国国立卫生研究院 (NIH) 获得了奖学金，在美国国家过敏症研究所所长安东尼·福奇博士的指导下从事艾滋病毒研究。乔·拜登总统的传染病和首席医疗顾问。自1997年以来，他一直担任宾夕法尼亚大学佩雷尔曼医学院的医学教授。

“我仍然是一名基础科学家，永远都是，”他在 2021 年 4 月布兰迪斯举办的病毒战争：对抗 COVID-19 和其他病毒威胁的活动中说道。“基础科学是能够接受一个想法，并对其进行测试，看看它是否有效。如果这不起作用，你就做别的事情。对我来说，从事基础科学事业是非常令人满意的。”

通过艰苦的研究和尽管遇到挫折仍坚持不懈，魏斯曼博士和 Karikó 发现，通过设计修改版的 mRNA（将有关蛋白质生产的指令传输到细胞），然后开发一个系统来传递它，他们可以欺骗免疫系统思考 身体感染病毒并产生抗体以产生至少部分免疫力。他们的工作为 BioNTech/辉瑞 和 Moderna COVID-19 疫苗奠定了基础。

彼得·格鲁伯神经科学主席、2017 年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖获得者迈克尔·罗斯巴什 (Michael Rosbash) 表示：“当前疫情大流行带来的少数积极后果之一是全世界为研制有效疫苗而做出的成功努力。” “其中最具创意的技术依赖于 Kariko 和魏斯曼博士首创的新型mRNA 技术。这是一个伟大的故事，基础科学领域的个人主动性最终对现实世界产生了显著的影响。”

在传统疫苗中，例如水痘、脊髓灰质炎、流感或狂犬病疫苗，会注射减弱或杀死的病毒版本，欺骗免疫系统来对抗疾病。这种方法比合成 mRNA 更昂贵，而 mRNA 可以通过重新编程来对抗不同的疾病。

布兰迪斯大学教务长兼执行官生物化学家卡罗尔·菲尔克 (Carol Fierke) 表示：“COVID-19 疫苗的突破是基础科学创新（例如 Weissman 和 Karikó 首创的 RNA 技术）如何对生物医学科学进步产生巨大影响的一个很好的例子。” 负责学术事务的副校长。

魏斯曼博士说，他在布兰代斯大学生物化学专业的经历让他“深入了解了如何提出假设——如何思考它们，如何开发新的研究方向。” 他没有在三年内毕业，而是选择留在第四年并获得硕士学位。他写了关于乙酰化的硕士论文

Brandeis University Congratulates Drew Weissman

Drew Weissman's pioneering work in messenger RNA led to the lifesaving vaccinations that have altered the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, has won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with collaborator Katalin Karikó, senior vice president at BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals.

“It is here that I honed my critical thinking skills, starting as a freshman in Shapiro Hall, and nurtured my passion for scientific exploration in Professor Gerry Fasman’s biochemistry lab,” Weissman said during his remarks. “I learned the value of collaboration and open-mindedness while being an active student, campus member, and part-time activist.”

Brandeis and the Rosenstiel Foundation awarded Weissman and Karikó the 50th Annual Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award in Basic Medical Research in February 2021. Both were also awarded the prestigious Lasker award in clinical medical research.

“Drew’s pioneering research in messenger RNA is a true breakthrough for science. Through his visionary work, he has not only altered the course of a pandemic, but has advanced human knowledge and understanding in ways that will shape vaccine research for generations to come. His remarkable achievement is one of the great scientific accomplishments of our time,” said Brandeis President Ron Liebowitz.

A Lexington, Massachusetts native, Weissman followed his youthful passion for science to Brandeis. He studied biochemistry and enzymology, fulfilled pre-med requirements, and embarked on a lifetime of research, getting his start in professor Gerald Fasman’s lab. Outside the classroom and lab, he engaged with other students in environmental and racial justice, and voting rights activism.

“Coming to Brandeis expanded my learning. I learned about politics, I learned about psychology, I learned about sociology, I learned about music, theater and opera. All of those things have continued to expand over my years after graduating. So, I think it really broadened me as a person,” he said in his remarks when he received the Brandeis Alumni Achievement Award in 2021. “But my main focus was in the lab doing research, and that's where I was happiest.”

Weissman graduated from Brandeis with bachelor’s and master’s degrees and went on to earn his PhD and MD from the Boston University. After graduate school, Weissman completed a residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he worked on HIV research under the supervision of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden. Since 1997, he has been a professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

“I'm still a basic scientist, I always will be,” he said during an April 2021 Brandeis event, Virus Wars: The Battle Against COVID-19 and Other Viral Threats. “Basic science is being able to take an idea, and test it and see if it works. And if it doesn't work, you do something else. And a career in basic science to me is incredibly satisfying.”

Through painstaking research, and persistence despite setbacks, Weissman and Karikó found that by engineering a modified version of mRNA — which transports instructions to cells regarding the production of proteins — and then developing a system to deliver it, they could trick the immune system into thinking the body is infected with a virus and produce antibodies to create at least partial immunity. Their work laid the groundwork for the BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

“Among the few positive consequences of the current pandemic are the successful efforts made worldwide to generate effective vaccines,” said Michael Rosbash, the Peter Gruber Endowed Chair in Neuroscience and 2017 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. “The most creative of these rely on the new messenger RNA technology pioneered by Kariko and Weissman. This is a great story where individual initiative in basic science has ended up having a remarkable real-world impact.”

In traditional vaccines, such as those for chickenpox, polio, flu or rabies, a weakened or killed version of the virus is injected, fooling the immune system into fighting the disease. That approach is more expensive than synthesizing mRNA, which can be reprogrammed to fight different illnesses.

"The COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough is a great example of how basic science innovations, such as the RNA technology pioneered by Weissman and Karikó, can have an enormous impact on advances in the biomedical sciences," said biochemist Carol Fierke, Brandeis provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.

Weissman said his time as biochemistry major at Brandeis gave him “insights on how to develop hypotheses — how to think about them, how to develop new lines of research.” Rather than graduating in three years, he chose to stay a fourth and earn a master’s degree. He wrote his master's thesis on acetylation of DNA, part of the process of gene regulation.

“Drew’s pioneering research in messenger RNA is a true breakthrough for science. His remarkable achievement is one of the great scientific accomplishments of our time. ” said Brandeis President Ron Liebowitz. 

Brandeis, he says, also taught him the value of a supportive community. Being pre-med, he says, was “an incredibly stressful time … but I had the support of not only the students, my friends, but the teachers as well.”

“They wanted us to succeed, and I think that's what shaped my future. Where right now I have a lot of students in my lab and I work with them to help them succeed, and that's what Brandeis taught me,” he said. “I think what really sticks out in my mind is the collegiality, the collaborative nature, and the friendships that I developed at Brandeis. It was an incredibly warm and supportive community.”

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