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Will she get a Nobel Prize for the research that led to Covid-19 vaccines?

It reads like a script for a made-for-TV inspirational drama.

Fighting peer rejection, job losses, and at times self-doubt, Katalin Karikó “spent decades researching the therapeutic possibilities of mRNA,” a DNA component, because she was convinced it “could be used for something truly groundbreaking.” Now, her work “is the basis of the Covid-19 vaccine.”

She came to the U.S. from Hungary with her husband and toddler daughter  in the 1980s to pursue research opportunities at Temple University, then University of Pennsylvania, when mRNA research was something of a fad. But then interest faded, her grant applications were rejected, and she was denied promotions. “She also was diagnosed with cancer around the same time,” CNN reported.

Many people would’ve given up and pursued something else. She didn’t, and because she stuck with it, and with a colleague “developed a method of utilizing synthetic mRNA to fight disease that involves changing the way the body produces virus-fighting material,” CNN says, the Covid-19 vaccines now rolling out of biotech factories are possible.

Both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines, just now moving into distribution channels, are based on mRNA biotechnology, and Moderna co-founder Derek Rossi told CNN that if anyone deserves a Nobel Prize for these vaccines, “I would put them front and center.”

Historically, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded for discoveries, not “applied science contributions” such as vaccine development, according to Wikipedia (see article here), which is why Jonas Salk, who came up with the polio vaccine, never got one. That also means the researchers at Pfizer, Moderna, Oxford, and other biotech labs who developed the Covid-19 vaccines aren’t in the running.

The importance to humanity of Karikó’s persevering work in the face of daunting obstacles is undeniable, a Nobel Prize would be a fitting vindication, and her story makes her a sentimental favorite; but whether she gets serious consideration for the award likely will depend on whether her work is considered pioneering, i.e., “discovery,” or applied, i.e., turning a previous discovery (of mRNA) into something useful.

Read the CNN story here.

Update (9/24/21): Karikó and her research colleague, Dr. Drew Weissman, have been awarded the 2021 Lasker Award, often a precursor to a Nobel Prize (details here); read story here.

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