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Katalin Karikó's lost decade that enabled the mRNA vaccine
Shaan's Billy-of-the-Week-style tale of Hungarian scientist Katalin Karikó, who stayed focused on mRNA for decades through a 'lost decade' with no funding, eventually publishing a paper that spawned Moderna, BioNTech, and the COVID vaccines.
“There's like a lost decade where she's bootstrapping this herself, determined to find a way, publishes a paper saying, look, this actually like shows really promising results. And 3 different people read that paper and acted on it.”
Billy
Billy of the Week: Katalin Karikó, the immigrant who bet 30 years on mRNA
Shaan's Billy of the Week is biochemist Katalin Karikó, who torched her career to keep working on mRNA when the scientific community abandoned it in the '90s. Her eventual paper seeded Moderna, BioNTech, and the COVID vaccines.
“This woman basically like threw away her career because she believed in it. She was like, all right, I know there's no funding for this. Nobody will hire me to work on mRNA vaccines. There's just no money in this space, but I believe. And so she just kept working on it and kept persisting all the way through the '90s, a decade plus.”
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One paper, three companies: the Satoshi-like mRNA white paper
Shaan likens Karikó's mRNA paper to Satoshi's Bitcoin white paper — a single publication that simultaneously triggered light-bulb moments at Moderna and BioNTech (which licensed her tech and made her a VP), spreading the breakthrough worldwide.
“So imagine how cool this is. It's like Satoshi with the Bitcoin white paper. She just publishes this scientific paper, and then people all around the world are reading this, and the light bulb is going off simultaneously with 3 different companies at once to say, oh my God, this is going to change everything.”