While many are singing praises to mRNA technology following the development of highly adaptable COVID-19 vaccines, Dr. Katalin Kariko, an Abington biochemist, was among the first to realize the vast potential of the technology for treating various diseases, writes Allysia Finley for The Wall Street Journal.

Kariko is a Hungarian immigrant who came to Pennsylvania after landing a postdoctoral position at Temple University. Years later, she was hired by the University of Pennsylvania as an adjunct professor. She hoped to find a way to use mRNA to produce therapeutic proteins to substitute for medications.

However, since she was unable to get funding, she was continuously passed up for promotions.

“For two years every month I submitted for a grant and got none,” said Kariko. Research on mRNA “was a backwater.”

However, she did not get discouraged and continued working on mRNA technology together with immunologist Drew Weissman. Decades of hard work paid off, and her research finally started getting attention.

BioNTech and Moderna both licensed the Kariko-Weissman innovation and have spent more than a decade working on it. After the COVID-19 vaccine, scientists are looking at developing a treatment for other diseases, including cancer.

Read more about Katalin Kariko in The Wall Street Journal.