Posts Tagged: "Nobel Prize"

Inventor Profiles: Karikó, Weissman Earn Nobel Prize for Modifying mRNA and Paving Way for COVID-19 Vaccines

On October 2, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced that Hungarian-American biochemist Katalin Karikó and American immunologist Drew Weissman were awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries related to modified messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) for use in vaccines. A critical part of the world’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, mRNA vaccines were not an effective option until the pioneering work of these two scientists, one of whom faced considerable rejection while laying the foundation that answered one of the world’s greatest public health crises.

Steve Brachmann

October 4, 2023

When it Comes to Eukaryotic Cells, Broad Institute Has Priority to CRISPR Gene Editing Tech, Says PTAB

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) ruled in an interference proceeding yesterday that The Broad Institute, Inc., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and President and Fellows of Harvard College (“Broad”) have priority over The Regents of the University of California, University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier (“CVC”) with respect to who was first to invent the use of single-guide CRISPR-Cas9 genome engineering technology in eukaryotic cells.

Eileen McDermott

March 1, 2022

Nobel Prize Scientist Not Enough for Bankrupt Solar Company

Just because a company has a patent portfolio and interesting technology does not mean that the portfolio, or the company behind the portfolio, will be able to tap into the “perfect storm” we are seeing in certain high-tech industries. “I’m not seeing how the Konarka situation exemplifies the ‘Perfect Storm Effect’ at the upper end of the current patent market,” Laurie says. “On the demand side, the multi-billion dollar portfolio valuations in the mobile device and social media markets are being driven by huge, and ever expanding, consumer demand, and large gross margins neither of which factors would seem to apply to solar.”

Gene Quinn

June 6, 2012