Nobel debate As for who deserves a Nobel, the names that come up most often in conversation are Karikó and Weissman. The two have already won several prizes, including one of the Breakthrough Prizes (at $3 million, the most lucrative award in science) and Spain’s prestigious Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research. Also recognized in the Asturias prize were Felgner, Şahin, Türeci and Rossi, along with Sarah Gilbert, the vaccinologist behind the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, UK, and the drug firm AstraZeneca, which uses a viral vector instead of mRNA. (Cullis’s only recent accolade was a $5,000 founder’s award from the Controlled Release Society, a professional organization of scientists who study time-release drugs.)
Some also argue that Karikó should be acknowledged as much for her contributions to the mRNA research community at large as for her discoveries in the lab. “She’s not only an incredible scientist, she’s just a force in the field,” says Anna Blakney, an RNA bioengineer at the University of British Columbia. Blakney gives Karikó credit for offering her a speaking slot at a major conference two years ago, when she was still in a junior postdoc position (and before Blakney co-founded VaxEquity, a vaccine company in Cambridge, UK, focusing on self-amplifying-RNA technology). Karikó “is actively trying to lift other people up in a time when she’s been so under-recognized her whole career”.
Although some involved in mRNA’s development, including Malone, think they deserve more recognition, others are more willing to share the limelight. “You really can’t claim credit,” says Cullis. When it comes to his lipid delivery system, for instance, “we’re talking hundreds, probably thousands of people who have been working together to make these LNP systems so that they’re actually ready for prime time.”
“Everyone just incrementally added something — including me,” says Karikó.
Looking back, many say they’re just delighted that mRNA vaccines are making a difference to humanity, and that they might have made a valuable contribution along the road. “It’s thrilling for me to see this,” says Felgner. “All of the things that we were thinking would happen back then — it’s happening now.”
Nature 597, 318-324 (2021)
Don’t tell anyone but they’re not Vaccines
Thanks.
I’ve been meaning to look for and read something on history of this technology.
If there’s one person who has to be recognized it’s Katalin Karikó. She was just too stubborn to quit, when most people would have just found another line of research.
Malone has seemed kind of bitter these past few months, but it wasn’t clear why, until reading this.
Thanks for posting this.
bkmk
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lol. how things in the “scientific” establishment never seem to change.
always minimize the leap of insight present in the individual discoverer and maximize the plodding failures of scientific consensus—i.e., the bureaucratic crowd of pompous, credit seeking, vapid followers.
Some here on the daily vaccination thread think Robert Malone is a dunce. I think that says more about them then Robert Malone.
No death serum.