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Everyone needs to read this 40-year saga of Dr Katalin Karikó, inventor of the mRNA therapy behind Pfizer/BioNTech & Moderna #COVID19 vaccines. Rejected many times, nevertheless she persisted. She will win the Nobel Prize. Oh she’s an *immigrant* too! https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/redemption-one-scientists-unwavering-belief-mrna-gave-world/
2) here is a deeper story background of the mRNA saga. https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/10/the-story-of-mrna-how-a-once-dismissed-idea-became-a-leading-technology-in-the-covid-vaccine-race/
3) The biggest hope is that mRNA therapy can cure or treat other diseases too. Its fundamentally a delivery mechanism for making proteins de novo based on a set of genetic code (to make the spike protein of #SARSCoV2 in this case), but can be retooled later for other illnesses.
4) Her saga is also a lesson in critical science funding. “A decade later, when at the University of Pennsylvania, Prof Karikó was again demoted when her focus on mRNA failed to attract financial backing.”
She almost quit. If she had, we still would not have a ready vaccine yet.
She almost quit. If she had, we still would not have a ready vaccine yet.
5) Dr Karikó will be forever the Jonas Salk of our times. Follow her please — @kkariko. https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1337585528057815041
6) My god, Dr @kkariko’s workshop in her background is so perfect and everything I imagine for the genius scientist who brought us the greatest vaccine technology of our time!!! https://nypost.com/2020/12/05/this-scientists-decades-of-mrna-research-led-to-covid-vaccines/
