She was demoted, questioned and rejected. Now her work forms the basis of the Covid-19 vaccine

by

For decades of her career, Karikó has researched the therapeutic potential of mRNA, a component of DNA considered one of the most important building blocks of life. Through multiple setbacks, job losses, doubts and a transatlantic movement, Karikó held on to her belief that mRNA could be used for something truly groundbreaking. Now, that work is the foundation of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Karikó, 65, began her career in her native Hungary in the 1970s, when mRNA research was new and the possibilities seemed endless. But the call 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 US after receiving an invitation from Temple University in Philadelphia. They sold their car, Karikó told The Guardian, and put the money – an equivalent of about $ 1,200 – in their daughter’s teddy bear for safekeeping.
Fauci wants people to know that one of the leading scientists to develop the Covid-19 vaccine is a black woman
“We had just moved into our new apartment, our daughter was 2 years old, everything was so good, we were happy,” Karikó told Hungarian news site G7 about her family’s departure. “But we had to go.”

She continued her research at Temple and then at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. But by then the rose of mRNA research had blossomed, and Karikó’s idea that it could be used to fight disease was considered too radical and too financially risky to fund. She applied for grant after grant, but kept getting rejections and in 1995 she was demoted from her position at UPenn. Around the same time, she was also diagnosed with cancer.

“Usually at that point people just say goodbye and leave because it’s so awful,” she told Stat, a health news site, in November. ‘I was thinking of going somewhere else or doing something else. I also thought I might not be good enough, not smart enough. ‘

From doubt to breakthrough

But she stuck with it.

Ultimately, Karikó and her former colleague at the University of Pennsylvania, Drew Weissman, developed a method to use synthetic mRNA to fight disease, changing the way the body produces virus-fighting material, she explained on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time.”

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

“If somebody asked me who to vote for, I would put them in the forefront,” said Derek Rossi, one of the founders of the pharmaceutical giant Moderna. “That fundamental discovery goes to drugs that help the world.”

While recognition should be fun after all this time, Karikó says scientific glory isn’t what she’s thinking about right now.

“Truly, we will celebrate when this human suffering is over, when the hardships and all this awful time will end, and hopefully in the summer when we will forget about the virus and vaccine. And then I will really celebrate,” she said. Chris Cuomo from CNN.

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

Meanwhile, Karikó said she gave herself a little treat to celebrate the vaccine news: a bag of Goobers, her favorite candy.

.Source