The winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine made a discovery that helped create the COVID-19 vaccines. They couldn’t have anticipated the tremendous impact of their findings.
Colourized scanning electron micrograph of a cell heavily infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus particles.
(The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/Flickr)
Fundamental research has informed what we know about coronaviruses up until the pandemic. With possible future outbreaks, continuing and developing this type of work is crucial.