It’s frightening to imagine where the world would be right now without mRNA vaccines. The COVID-busting technology revolutionised vaccine development at an internationally critical moment – with massive implications for people’s health, wellbeing and the global economy.
Yet imagine we must – because some of the research most crucial to the development of mRNA vaccines almost didn’t happen.
Biochemist Katalin Karikó’s fascination with the therapeutic potential of mRNA began in the early 1990s, but she received little encouragement. She was undervalued and underfunded throughout her university career and eventually left academia.
