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Drew Weissman, Jewish immunologist, wins Nobel Prize for his work on Covid vaccines
(JTA) — Drew Weissman, a Jewish scientist who identified the technology that made possible the mRNA vaccines against COVID-19, has won the 2023 Nobel Prize in medicine. Weissman shared the prize with Katalin Kariko, his Hungarian-born research partner at the University of Pennsylvania.
Kariko and Weissman’s story of collaboration became famous in 2020 when the technology they had started experimenting with more than two decades earlier allowed the swift creation effective vaccines against the crippling pandemic.
The pair first encountered each other while photocopying research papers in 1998 and realized they were working on related topics. Kariko, who had been a low-level researcher for years, was trying to prove that messenger RNA, the genetic material that tells cells what to do, could be programmed. Weissman, a physician who previously worked under Dr. Anthony Fauci, later the U.S. COVID czar, at the National Institutes of Health, was working on a vaccine against HIV.
They teamed up and, in 2005, published a paper showing that mRNA could in fact be altered to instruct cells to take certain actions. But their breakthrough was widely overlooked for decades until it became clear that it could be used to take action against COVID-19, which was killing hundreds of thousands of people and crippling the global economy. Their technology fueled both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which arrived with unusual speech and effectiveness in late 2020 and together have been administered millions of times.
“Through their groundbreaking findings, which have fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system, the laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” the Nobel Prize committee said in announcing the award.
Weissman is the son of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother who grew up celebrating Jewish holidays at home, he told the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent in 2021. Together with his wife Mary Ellen, who grew up in a more observant Jewish home, he sent his children to Hebrew school at Temple Beth Hillel/Beth El, a Conservative synagogue in suburban Philadelphia. Mary Ellen Weissman is heavily involved in Momentum, which seeks to engage Jewish women with Israel, and together with her husband has spoken to and donated to the organization.
Drew Weissman told the Exponent that his personal religious outlook was not specifically Jewish. ““I’m more of a Daoist, in that point of view that I think that Earth, nature is the supreme — the main component of life,” he said. “And that’s what needs to be celebrated.”
About a quarter of Nobel laureates in medicine over time have had one or more Jewish parents, according to Jinfo.org, a website that meticulously documents the Jewish lineage of prize winners across all fields. The site, which was updated swiftly to include Weissman, says that nearly 40% of U.S. Nobel laureates in medicine have been Jewish.
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The post Drew Weissman, Jewish immunologist, wins Nobel Prize for his work on Covid vaccines appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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250 Hezbollah Terrorists Including 21 Commanders Eliminated in Ground Op
DF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
i24 News – The Israeli military eliminated 250 Hezbollah terrorists including 21 commanders in four days of ground combat, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Friday.
IDF soldiers operating in southern Lebanon have uncovered vast caches of weapons and munitions in civilian residences, showing how central embedding within civilian population is to Hezbollah’s mode of warfare.
Meanwhile, heavy strikes targeting the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh in southern Beirut were ongoing, Lebanese media reported.
The post 250 Hezbollah Terrorists Including 21 Commanders Eliminated in Ground Op first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Airstrikes Launched on Several Parts of Yemen, Houthi Al Masirah TV says
Illustrative. Hodeidah, Yemen, July 20, 2024. Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS
Airstrikes were launched on Friday at several parts of Yemen including its capital Sanaa and Hodeidah airport, Al Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by the Houthi movement controlling much of Yemen, and residents said.
Strikes also targeted the south of Dhamar city and the southeast of al-Bayda province, the channel added.
Residents said that the attack on al-Bayda province targeted several Houthi military outposts.
Al Masirah TV reported that the strikes had been carried out by the United States and British forces, but a British government source said Britain was not involved.
Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched attacks on international shipping near Yemen since last November in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel‘s war with Hamas.
The attacks have drawn US and British retaliatory strikes and disrupted global trade as ship owners reroute vessels away from the Red Sea and Suez Canal to sail the longer route around the southern tip of Africa.
Following the airstrikes, a Houthi spokesman called the attack “a desperate attempt,” adding that “Yemen will not be deterred by these attacks and will continue its steadfastness in confronting the enemies.”
The post Airstrikes Launched on Several Parts of Yemen, Houthi Al Masirah TV says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Kills Hamas Commander in Tulkarem
Illustrative. Israeli troops during counterterrorism activity in Tulkarem, northwestern Samaria, September 2024. Photo: IDF.
JNS.org – An Israeli Air Force fighter jet conducted a rare strike in Tulkarem in the West Bank on Thursday night, targeting top Hamas terrorist Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi.
The Palestinian Authority reported at least 18 fatalities in the strike, with a local security source telling Agence France-Presse it was the deadliest in Judea and Samaria since the Second Intifada.
Ayyth Radwan, the head of Islamic Jihad’s Tulkarem branch, was also reportedly killed.
Oufi was planning a terrorist attack “in the immediate time frame,” according to the Israel Defense Forces, and directed the thwarted car bombing last month near Ateret in the Binyamin region of Samaria.
There were no casualties in the incident, which Israel Ganz, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council, called a “great miracle.”
The IDF said Oufi was involved in smuggling weapons to terrorists who perpetrated several recent attacks against Israelis, including some that resulted in injuries to civilians.
He also “worked to establish terrorist networks on behalf of Hamas and assisted terror operatives in the area to carry out significant shooting and explosive attacks,” added the military.
The post IDF Kills Hamas Commander in Tulkarem first appeared on Algemeiner.com.