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Kati Kariko Helped Shield the World From the Coronavirus
Collaborating with devoted colleagues, Dr. Kariko laid the groundwork for the mRNA vaccines turning the tide of the pandemic.
Katalin Kariko at her home in Jenkintown, Pa., in February. Dr. Kariko’s early research into mRNA eventually led to development of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.Credit.Hannah Yoon
April 8, 2021, 11:31 a.m. ET
She grew up in Hungary, daughter of a butcher. She decided she wanted to be a scientist, although she had never met one. She moved to the United States in her 20s, but for decades never found a permanent position, instead clinging to the fringes of academia.
Researchers looking for mRNA were ridiculed by colleagues. Luckily, that didn’t stop them.
Sixty years ago, the scientists who were pioneering the technology that would make today s COVID-19 vaccines possible were mocked and dismissed
February 18, 2021 In this illustration, a ribosome (centre) is producing a protein (red) from an mRNA template (multicoloured); the COVID-19 vaccine uses mRNA to teach our bodies to recognize and attack the virus’s protein (Juan Gaertner/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)
A few days before Christmas, Matthew Meselson, a 90-year-old professor at Harvard, called his university’s health service to inquire about being vaccinated against COVID-19. He was eager for his shot. Meselson felt imprisoned in his Cambridge apartment, just blocks from the campus where he’d worked for six decades. He’d officially retired from teaching at the beginning of 2020, but continued his research as much as possible throughout the pandemic, wearing a K95 mask t