The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded Monday to two scientists whose work led to the mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. As countries prepared to roll out those shots, The Associated Press took a look at how the vaccines were developed so quickly. ___How could scientists race out COVID-19 vaccines so fast without cutting corners? A head start helped -- over a decade of behind-the-scenes research that had new vaccine technology poised for a challenge just as the coronavirus erupted. Both shots — one made by Pfizer and BioNTech, the other by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health — are so-called messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccines, a brand-new technology.

---

Persons: Dr, Anthony Fauci, Buddy Creech, ” Creech, Tal Zaks, ”, Drew Weissman, Weissman, Katalin, Philip Dormitzer, Barney Graham’s, ” Fauci, Graham, Jason McLellan, hadn't, “, ” Graham, Germany’s, Pfizer’s Dormitzer, Ugur Sahin Organizations: Medicine, COVID, Associated Press, Vanderbilt University, Infectious Diseases Society of America, Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, National Institutes of Health, NIH, University of Pennsylvania, Penn, NIH’s Vaccine Research Center, Associated Press Health, Science Department, Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education, AP Locations: U.S, Massachusetts, BioNTech, New York, China