Nobel for mRNA vaccine shows power of perseverance

That discovery helped spawn the earliest biotech companies working on the technology, in turn, laying the groundwork for mRNA’s starring role in the pandemic. That chemical trick is included in Moderna’s and Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccines, which are responsible for saving many millions of lives over the past two years.

Some of the joy of today’s prize is that it rewards Karikó‘s many decades of effort to convince the world mRNA held promise as a therapeutic. After coming to the US from Hungary in the mid-1980s, she struggled to get financial support for her research, moving from lab to lab to try to keep her work alive until a now-legendary encounter with Weissman over a Xerox machine while at the University of Pennsylvania.

They teamed up to work on mRNA, but even their successes met roadblocks. When she and Weissman discovered that critical chemical swap in 2005, the scientific community failed to recognise its importance. As she told PNAS in 2021, “We first sent to a Nature journal, and within 24 [hours], they rejected it as an incremental contribution. I started learning English only at university, so I had to look up the meaning of the word incremental!”

A struggle to convince the world

Karikó‘s struggle to convince the world of mRNA’s value ultimately pushed her out of academia and to BioNTech, which she joined in 2013. By then, investors had started to come around to the idea that mRNA could be useful. But only a handful of companies were pursuing the idea.

All of that changed practically overnight when reports started popping up of cases of pneumonia because of a novel coronavirus. The pandemic was the ultimate test: While mRNA promised to accelerate the design and manufacture of a vaccine, it had never been proven in a late-stage clinical trial. As we now know, it turned out to be a resounding success.

Over the next two years, mRNA-based vaccines for RSV and the flu should arrive, as could a highly anticipated cancer vaccine from Moderna. Yet for mRNA’s full potential to be realised – and Karikó’s dream of turning it into a therapeutic – the field will need another dose of her brand of intense determination.

While undeniably world-changing, vaccines are also the low-hanging fruit of the mRNA world. To work, they only need to coax cells into making a fleeting amount of protein – enough to train the immune system so that it can eventually spot the real virus. Turning mRNA into drug, one that not only gets to the right cells in the body but can offer some therapeutic benefit, is a much trickier proposition.

We will get there, eventually. While biotech companies are working on the problem, it also will require ongoing support of basic science like the work done by Karikó and Weissman. Politicians shouldn’t forget that when considering painful budget cuts for foundational research.

The Nobel prize is another reminder that the slog of basic science can have unexpected payoffs – and should be both celebrated and funded. And maybe it will help with another slog: convincing those still distrustful of this “new” technology that decades of effort have gone into making it safe.

Lisa Jarvis covers biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry for Bloomberg Opinion.

Bloomberg