The 2023 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine will go to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discovery that modifying mRNA – a form of genetic material your body uses to produce proteins – could reduce unwanted inflammatory responses and allow it to be delivered into cells. While the impact of their findings may not have been apparent at the time of their breakthrough over a decade ago, their work paved the way for the development of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, as well as many other therapeutic applications currently in development. The 2023 Nobel Prize in physics likewise will go to a team of scientists who used lasers to clarify the behaviour of electrons, and many prior Nobels have honored basic research.
We asked André O. Hudson, a biochemist and microbiologist at the Rochester Institute of Technology, to explain how basic research like that of this year’s Nobel Prize winners provides the foundations for science – even when its far-reaching effects won’t be felt until years later.
What is basic science?
Basic research, sometimes called fundamental research, is a type of investigation with the overarching goal of understanding natural phenomena like how cells work or how birds can fly. Scientists are asking the fundamental questions of how, why, when, where and if in order to bridge a gap in curiosity and understanding about the natural world.
Researchers sometimes conduct basic research with the hope of eventually developing a technology or drug based on that work. But what many scientists typically do in academia is ask fundamental questions with answers that may or may not ever lead to practical applications.
Humans, and the animal kingdom as a whole, are wired to be curious. Basic research scratches that itch.
