New York (dpa) – Two German brain researchers and the BioNTech biochemist Katalin Kariko are among the winners of the renowned Lasker Awards this year.

The 2021 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award went to Kariko and Drew Weissman (University of Pennsylvania) who discovered a new therapeutic technology based on the modification of messenger RNA.

“This breakthrough enabled rapid development of highly effective Covid-19 vaccines,” the Lasker Foundationi said in a statement Friday.

The 2021 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award went to three scientists for the discovery of light-sensitive microbial proteins that can activate or silence individual brain cells and for their use in developing optogenetics, which the foundation called “a revolutionary technique for neuroscience.”

Dieter Oesterhelt from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried uncovered an archaeal protein that pumps protons out of cells when illuminated.

Peter Hegemann from Humboldt University of Berlin then found related channel proteins in single-celled algae.

Karl Deisseroth of Stanford University harnessed these molecules to create light-triggered systems that can be deployed in live, free-moving animals to decipher the role of specific classes of—and even individual—neurons within labyrinthine brain circuits.

“Hundreds of laboratories around the world are now using this approach, called optogenetics, to untangle the elaborate networks that underlie healthy physiology and neurological disease,” the foundation said.

David Baltimore received the 2021 Lasker-Koshland Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science.

The foundation said that Baltimore, one of the premier biomedical scientists of the last five decades, “provided visionary academic leadership at multiple institutions and has mentored trainees who have later become prominent scientists in their fields.”