TORONTO – When he founded his lab at the University of British Columbia in the 1980s, Pieter Cullis says he could never have understood that his “curiosity-based” research would eventually play a role important in developing vaccines that benefit hundreds of people. millions of people globally.
The Vancouver professor of biochemistry was named among the winners of Canada’s prestigious Gairdner Prize for his contributions to the development of a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine.
Cullis said the award serves as a reminder that understanding science begins with a question, and that even “fundamental” research can lead to world-changing breakthroughs.
“We just found it hard to believe,” Cullis said in an interview ahead of Tuesday’s Gairdner Prize announcement. “You’re working away, you’re doing what you do, and then who could have predicted that we would have this kind of impact.”
Cullis and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman, were recognized with the Gairdner International Prize for developing the foundational technology behind a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, such as the vaccine. -xin produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
Karikó and Weissman are credited with discovering how to engineer messenger RNA to teach our cells to make a protein that helps train the body’s immune system to identify and fight the COVID-19 virus.
The question is how to get the mRNA into our cells without degradation. That’s the problem Cullis, co-founder of Vancouver-based biotech company Acuitas Therapeutics, has been investigating since the early days of studying the chemical composition of cell membranes.
His lab laid the groundwork for a vaccine’s drug delivery system, which uses tiny bubbles of fat – called lipid nanoparticles – to protect and transport mRNA into our cells. .
“It is remarkable to suddenly go from a situation where we are dealing with a relatively unknown therapeutic approach, to one that is currently being used by billions of arms around the world,” Cullis said. use.
Cullis said that the COVID-19 vaccine represents “the tip of the iceberg” in the technology’s potential applications. He sees lipid nanoparticles as a promising new tool that could usher in a wave of “personalized therapies” that not only treat the symptoms of the disease but also target the underlying causes.
In its citation, the Gairdner jury said the discoveries that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine “has the potential to revolutionize the delivery of effective vaccines, therapeutics and gene therapies and safe in the future.”
Cullis said Gairdner’s recognition underscores the importance of supporting scientific innovation in Canada, noting that many of our brightest minds move to the US to pursue career opportunities.
“This is something that we have to deal with, that we find ways to create industries for us to keep our people in Canada,” he said. “They’re not going south because they want to leave Canada. They’re going south because that’s where the jobs are.”
Canadians have received four of the seven Gairdner Prizes this year, recognizing some of the world’s most important scientific discoveries that impact human health.
Other Gairdner International Award winners are John Dick, a senior scientist at Toronto’s Princess Margaret Cancer Center, for his discovery of leukemia stem cells in a patient with acute myeloid leukemia, and Stuart Orkin of Harvard University for groundbreaking discoveries about red blood cells that have led to new treatments for disorders like sickle cell disease.
Zulfiqar Bhutta, a senior scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, has won the Gairdner Global Health Award for developing evidence-based strategies to support maternal and child health in disadvantaged populations.
The Canadian Gairdner Wightman Prize, awarded to a Canadian researcher who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in the medical sciences, went to Deborah Cook of McMaster University for her multidisciplinary research in medicine. learn critical care.
The Gairdner Prize, which includes $100,000 per recipient, has been nicknamed the “Nobels” because the 96 Gairdner Prize winners have gone on to receive the Nobel Prize, according to organizers.
This Canadian Press report was first published on April 5, 2022.
