IMAGE COPYRIGHT THE HUNGARIAN FREE PRESS
You’ve probably heard of Moderna, Pfizer. If you listen to the news more often you might have even heard of RNA, RNA Vaccine. But you probably haven’t heard of Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, the masterminds behind an mRNA Vaccine.
mRNA stands for Messenger RNA. Dr. Karikó was an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She had ideas about something that seemed completely impossible and didn’t seem like something that could work. Her ideas were that if you could make an mRNA and inject it, you can produce any protein in the body which can work in different ways. Her ideas seemed so crazy, and she didn’t get much support. But if you thought about it, it makes sense. Our body’s DNA makes these things called mRNA which is a type of RNA that makes proteins. In fact, it is the only type of RNA that can make proteins. Every single cell in our body has this ongoing process because proteins do the work which keeps cells alive. The first step in the protein making cycle is for the DNA to make the mRNA. After the mRNA makes protein it gets destroyed by the cell. The DNA on the other hand are the ‘genes’ we inherit from our parents and continue to remain in the cells. Dr. Kariko’s ideas were that if you were to make a mRNA and inject it into the body, you could create any type of protein, but this will not make any changes to the DNA (our genes).
So, in the 1990’s Katalin came up with these ideas. But she spent most of the 1990’s collecting negative feedback, rejections, etc. In the year 1990 the University of Wisconsin did make these ideas work in mice but Dr. Karikó wanted to see if it would work in humans. But there was a problem in her idea, our bodies would most likely attack a synthetic mRNA before it reaches its target because mRNA’s are quite vulnerable. Like think of the game Fishy Fishy Cross my Ocean. Imagine if the fish is the mRNA and needs to get to the other side, the target. Our body’s immune system, the shark, would most likely get the fish before it reaches the other side. So just like that the mRNA that we inject will probably be attacked and the reaction of the attack (The reaction of the shark catching the fish) will most likely be very strong and could be a health risk to the patient receiving the mRNA.
In the early 2000’s her collaborator at University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Drew Weissman, discovered how to modify the mRNA so it would not be so vulnerable. Every piece of mRNA is made of 4 blocks called nucleosides. But one of the artificial nucleosides was the signaling the immune system, almost like a spy, causing your body to start the attack. So, Drs Weissman and Dr. Karikó subbed that nucleoside for a different nucleoside which created a hybrid mRNA (Like today’s new hybrid cars) that could sneak right through your body’s “immigration” and reach its target.
Their discoveries caught the attention of three scientists, Dr. Derrick Rossi, a native of Toronto he saw this technology as a possibility not for vaccines but for another thing he wanted badly. He wanted to find another source of embryonic stem cell. Why? Because an embryonic stem cell can treat almost anything, from Parkinson’s Disease to Spinal Cord Injuries. Collecting embryonic stem cells are difficult and have some ethical issues. So, he wanted to see if he could use these modified mRNA molecules to reprogram adult cells so they act like embryonic stem cells. He asked one of his lab members to explore this idea and try to see if it would work. In 2009 almost a year later that postdoctoral fellow showed Dr. Rossi exactly what he wanted, a plate full of those embryonic stem cells. In a few months Dr. Rossi and two other professionals, Dr. Noubar Afeyan, an Armenian-American philanthropist, and Dr. Robert Langer, a scientist at MIT. They together started Moderna.
Meanwhile the second scientist[s] who’s attention was also caught by Katlin and Drew’s ideas was a Turkish couple named Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci who lived in Mainz, Germany. They started BioNTech in 2008. They were trying to develop Cancer Vaccines using mRNA. But their company didn’t earn much publicity.
But at the same time Moderna was earning lots of money and publicity. In 2012 British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca agreed to pay Moderna a shocking $240 Million for the rights (Copyrights) to dozens of mRNA drugs that Moderna hadn’t created yet. This was only one of the shocking scenes, Moderna, a company with no published papers and almost nothing created yet was earning billions and was receiving humongous amounts of publicity. But the scientists behind the scenes were seeing a familiar problem. The mRNA Therapy was causing extreme immune reactions, reactions that Dr. Karikó had worked so hard on fixing. And lowering the amount of mRNA inserted in the body would just be too little mRNA and would have no effect. But if mRNA as proved before was too dangerous to be given several times, then Moderna would have to rely on giving only 1 or 2 doses. Due to this Moderna pivoted from being a drug company to a vaccine company.
Later, in 2013 BioNTech hired Dr. Karikó as their Senior Vice President. Her job was to oversee their mRNA work, which was what Dr. Karikó had developed. That same year they also started disclosing their goals of changing the treatment of cancer and their new partnerships with 8 major drug makers that would help them mass produce their products.
But then, in early last year, the world changed. The COVID-19 Pandemic started and suddenly everyone went into lockdown, thousands of people started getting sick with this “unknown Pneumonia” and a significant number of those patients started dying. Millions of people lost their job. The world suddenly turned lopsided and Cancer, Parkinson’s Disease, etc. were put on the back burner. Scientists at Moderna, BioNTech, etc. got to work trying to create a vaccine using the mRNA technology developed 20 years ago. Both companies developed a tiny piece of genetic code (like the computer program) that could be used to cause a COVID immune response which would teach your body how to fight (and win) COVID if it ever got it. This did not however, suddenly make you unable to let the virus in you.
Moderna quickly got approvals and their vaccine started being tested on humans. The first person to receive the Moderna vaccine was a CNN Affiliate who was from Savannah, Georgia. Meanwhile, in Germany Ugur Sahin got -without question- Pfizer’s partnership which would allow Pfizer, already a giant in the industry to use BioNTech’s technology while BioNTech got their technology mass produced and used globally. Pfizer and BioNTech didn’t request or receive any money from the government because they don’t want to get involved in politics. There has been a strong political presence in the COVID-19 Pandemic. On July 27th, 2020 Pfizer started their late-stage trial- the same day Moderna started theirs.
It turns out that both Moderna and Pfizer are now two of the most given COVID vaccine. AstraZeneca, the UK’s vaccine company didn’t do so well, and their vaccine doesn’t seem to be as effective. Due to that Sputnik, Russia’s vaccine is planned to be mixed with the AstraZeneca vaccine to try to increase effectiveness. But in the UK, they are mostly giving Pfizer Vaccines. In my recent interview with Dr. Simon Chowdhury, a doctor in London and now a overseer of one of their multiple vaccine giving teams he said that “That they are mostly giving the Pfizer one but they also have been giving the AstraZeneca one”. He thinks that “The UK is actually doing very well” even though their vaccine wasn’t a complete success. The injection is given into the Deltoid Muscle using a 20mm needle with .3mls of vaccine in it. Dr. Chowdhury says 18% of the UK population has received the vaccine and 50-100 people receive the vaccines every hour in the UK.
Today huge companies are competing over COVID Vaccines and thousands of people are receiving the vaccine every day. But all the science behind these needles started with these two people, Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman.