Research by Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman paved the way for two COVID-19 vaccines: the ones by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. Their work has won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Katalin Karikó, left, and Drew Weissman made pivotal discoveries with messenger RNA at the University of Pennsylvania, setting the stage for potent COVID-19 vaccines.The Nobel Prize in medicine is going to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, the University of Pennsylvania scientists who discovered how to harness the power of messenger RNA — the genetic linchpin of the first vaccines against COVID-19.
Three decades ago, when Karikó began to study RNA for its possible uses in medicine, that kind of achievement would’ve struck many scientists as science fiction. Among other issues, the delicate molecules were quick to degrade and caused harmful inflammation in lab animals. Karikó struggled to secure federal funds for her work, and as a result, in 1995 she was turned down for a tenure-track position at Penn.
The pair met at the copy machine the late 1990s, while waiting to make copies of scientific journal articles, and took an interest in each other’s findings. They agreed to work together. The pair hoped that they could deliver their own temporary RNA blueprints inside human cells, coaxing them to make customized proteins without needing to interfere with the person’s master blueprint — the DNA.
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