Science Notes

Nobel Prize for Medicine goes to mRNA researchers.
Nobel Prize for Medicine goes to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, pioneers of mRNA research.

Katalin Karikó emigrated from Hungary to the U.S. in 1985 when her funding dried up. At the University of Pennsylvania, she was mocked and, in 1995, demoted for persisting with RNA research. I read about this when her work at BioNTech made mRNA vaccines possible. The most famous mRNA vaccine protects against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19.

She shares the prize with immunologist Drew Weissman, whom she met over a photocopier machine at the university, and they hold patents together.

Ironically, the mRNA causes a swift and severe immune reaction that keeps it from creating proteins. Karikó and Weissman discovered that mRNA had to be modified by the substitution of a nucleotide base to reduce the immune reaction and let the vaccine work.

She left the university for BioNTech to put her expertise into practice, and the rest is history!

• News story
• Katalin Karikó
• Drew Weissman
• Covid-19 vaccines