The unknown vaccine visionary

Katalin Kariko was ignored by the scientific establishment for much of her career, said Gina Kolata in The New York Times. But the 66-yearold biochemist is now being celebrated as one of the heroes of Covid-19 vaccine development, having helped lay the groundwork for Moderna’s and Pfizer-BioNTech’s pioneering shots. Born in Communist Hungary, Kariko moved to the U.S. in 1985 with her husband and 2-year-old daughter. Working at Philadelphia’s Temple University and then the University of Pennsylvania, Kariko became obsessed with the possibilities of messenger RNA, which tells cells how to build particular proteins. She was certain mRNA could be used to teach the body to make its own medicines, including vaccines. But Kariko struggled to secure funding and interest, and never made more than $60,000 a year. Not that the workaholic biochemist was bothered by money. “The bench”—her lab workstation—“is there, the science is good. Who cares?” Two biotech companies, Moderna and Germany’s BioNTech, eventually took note of her work with Drew Weissman, a professor at Penn. When the pandemic hit, both firms developed mRNA vaccines that instruct cells to produce a benign version of the coronavirus’ spike protein, training the immune system to fight the real thing. On Nov. 8, the first data from Pfizer-BioNTech’s clinical trial came in, proving the effectiveness of its mRNA shot. “Oh, it works,” Kariko told her husband. “I thought so.”