Katalin Kariko’s work on mRNA is the basis of the Covid-19 vaccine

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Karikó has spent decades of his career researching the therapeutic possibilities of mRNA, a component of DNA that is considered one of the major building blocks of life. Through multiple setbacks, job losses, doubts and a transatlantic movement, Karikó maintained his conviction: that mRNA could be used for something truly innovative. Now, this work is the basis of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Karikó, 65, began his career in his native Hungary in the 1970s, when research on mRNA was new and the possibilities seemed endless. But the appeal of the American dream (and more research and funding opportunities) took root.

In 1985, she and her husband and young daughter left Hungary for the United States after receiving an invitation from the Temple University of Philadelphia. They sold their car, Karikó told The Guardian, and stuffed the money (equivalent to about $ 1,200) into their daughter’s teddy bear to save.
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“We had just moved into our new apartment, our daughter was 2 years old, everything was so good, we were happy,” Karikó told the Hungarian G7 news site of his family’s departure. “But we had to go.”

He continued his research at Temple and then at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. But by then, flowering was no longer in the light of mRNA research, and Karikó’s idea that it could be used to fight disease was considered too radical, too risky financially to fund. She applied for help after aid, but continued to receive rejections and, in 1995, was demoted from her position at UPenn. He was also diagnosed with cancer at the same time.

“Usually right now, people say goodbye and leave because it’s very horrible,” he told Stat, a health news site, in November. “I thought about going somewhere else or doing something else. I also thought I might not be good enough, or smart enough.”

From doubt to advance

But he stayed with her.

Finally, Karikó and his former colleague at the University of Pennsylvania, Drew Weissman, developed a method of using synthetic mRNA to fight disease that involves changing the way the body produces anti-virus material, he explained in CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time.”

This discovery is now the basis of the Covid-19 vaccine and some have said that Weissman and Karikó, now senior vice president of Germany-based BioNTech, deserve a Nobel Prize.

“If someone asks me who to vote for one day below the line, I would put them in front and in the center,” Derek Rossi, one of the founders of the pharmaceutical giant Moderna, told Stat. “This fundamental discovery will end up in drugs that will help the world.”

While the recognition, after all this time, must be pleasant, Karikó says that scientific glory is not what he has in his head now.

“Really, we’ll celebrate when this human suffering ends, when the hardships end and all this terrible moment, and hopefully in the summer, when we forget about the virus and the vaccine. And then I’ll be really celebrating,” he said. Chris Cuomo of CNN.

Karikó said he plans to get the vaccine soon, along with Weissman, and said he is “very, very sure” it will work. After all, it was his discoveries that contributed to it.

Meanwhile, Karikó said he was allowed a little treat to celebrate the news of the vaccine: a bag of Goobers, his favorite sweet.

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