Abington Scientist’s Vaccine Breakthrough Now Central to Moderna Action against Pfizer, BioNTech

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Image via Katalin Karikó at LinkedIn.
Katalin Karikó.

In a new lawsuit, Moderna is claiming Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech, copied its “groundbreaking discovery” — which was built upon the work of Abington scientist Katalin Karikó — to make a COVID-19 vaccine. Tom Avril put the action under a microscope in reporting it for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The dispute involves messenger RNA (mRNA) and who gets the credit for discovering how to use it as a basis for vaccines.

Legal battle aside, the truth that mRNA-based vaccines predate the pandemic cannot be disputed.

Karikó and Drew Weissman were working at University of Pennsylvania when they discovered how to tweak the RNA molecule to prevent harmful overreaction by the immune system. They published their findings in a series of studies starting in 2005, which became the basis for COVID-19 vaccines.

That was five years before Moderna was founded, and even Moderna cofounder Derrick Rossi expressed the opinion that the pair deserve a Nobel Prize.

“I would put them front and center,” he said. “That fundamental discovery is going to go into medicines that help the world.”

Read more about the lawsuit — and the role of Abington’s Katalin Karikó in it — in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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