Not only have the new mRNA vaccines proven to be more effective and safer than traditional vaccines, they can be developed and reengineered to take on emerging pathogens and new variants with breathtaking speed. During that time, they pioneered the mRNA technology that is fundamentally reshaping the landscape of vaccine development and the future of gene therapies. What followed was a partnership that has lasted for more than two decades. “I had always wanted to try mRNA,” Weissman says, “and here was somebody at the Xerox machine telling me that’s what she does.”Įfficacy of mRNA vaccines in preventing COVID-19 infection. The two scientists realized they shared a particular interest. One day, while waiting at the office to photocopy articles from a research journal, Weissman struck up a conversation with Penn biochemist Karikó. If we could manipulate those instructions, could mRNA be harnessed to create an entirely new kind of vaccine-one that could generate immunity without ever bringing a pathogen into the body? Weissman was especially intrigued by a single-stranded molecule called messenger RNA, or mRNA, which brings our cells the DNA blueprint for making proteins so that the body can function. ![]() But developing such vaccines can take years, and live pathogens pose health risks to those with compromised immune systems. Most traditional vaccines work by injecting an inactive, weakened, or small fragment of a pathogen-called an antigen-to trigger an immune response that the body remembers and can jump-start if the invader returns. Weissman, an immunologist with a PhD in microbiology, had recently accepted a position at the University of Pennsylvania and was trying to figure out how to make a better vaccine. Their decades-long crusade has been marked by rejection, crushing setbacks, and dogged perseverance. Modern medicine was transformed in an instant.īut the story of how scientist Drew Weissman (MED’87, GRS’87) and his research partner Katalin Karikó developed the revolutionary mRNA technology that powers the world’s most effective COVID-19 vaccines was a much slower burn-one that easily could have flickered out. Mishaps and lucky breaks gave us X-rays, insulin, and, most famously, penicillin, discovered in 1928, when a Scottish biologist returned from a summer holiday to find the bacteria cultures in his lab destroyed by a peculiar mold. An astonishing number of world-changing medical breakthroughs have come to humanity by way of serendipity.
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