Penn scientists are honored for mRNA research used in COVID vaccines

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, the University of Pennsylvania scientists whose research on messenger RNA (mRNA) paved the way for the Moderna and Pfizer COVID vaccines, have been named to the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

They and 14 other innovators will be inducted into the hall, a nonprofit marking its 50th anniversary, at an Oct. 26 black-tie ceremony in Washington, D.C.

The Penn scientists have been honored many times in the two years since the rollout of the vaccines, which have been administered to billions of people and have saved thousands of lives. Their discoveries, the first of which was published in 2005, also are the basis for experimental treatments against cancer and heart disease.

But perhaps never have the pair been honored among a group with such wide-ranging talents.

Other new members of the hall of fame include Luis von Ahn, a Carnegie Mellon researcher who co-invented those CAPTCHA programs that websites use to make sure you’re not a robot; Cyril and Louis Keller, the Minnesota brothers who invented the skid-steer loaders now known as Bobcats; and Marjorie Stewart Joyner, a beauty salon executive and civil rights advocate who invented a permanent hair-wave machine in the 1920s.

With the 16 new inductees, the Inventors Hall of Fame will include 624 members, the first of whom was Thomas Edison. Based in North Canton, Ohio, the nonprofit was founded in 1973 in partnership with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. It also runs a museum in Alexandria, Va.

Nominees are recommended by a panel of experts in science, technology, engineering and patents. Candidates must hold a U.S. patent for an invention that is groundbreaking or a significant advancement in their field. The inventions also must be widely used and must contribute to societal well-being.

Karikó began to study messenger RNA three decades ago for possible use in medicine, at a time when most scientists thought it was a lost cause. Among other issues, the delicate genetic molecules were quick to degrade and caused harmful inflammation when administered to lab animals.

She struggled to secure federal funds for her work, and as a result, in 1995 she was turned down for a tenure-track position at Penn. Yet she stuck with it, and upon joining forces with Weissman, the two eventually cracked the code.

In the case of the vaccines, mRNA is used to deliver instructions for the recipient’s cells to make a harmless fragment of the coronavirus. That enables the immune system to develop antibodies and other defenses should the person ever be infected with the real thing.

Karikó now works at BioNTech, the German company that partnered with Pfizer to make its COVID vaccine, though she maintains an affiliation with Penn. Weissman is working on next-generation vaccines that would protect against multiple coronaviruses, including those that have yet to jump from bats to humans.

In addition to Karikó, Weissman, von Ahn, the Kellers, and Joyner, the new members include:

• Rodolphe Barrangou and Philippe Horvath, who discovered a type of bacterial immune system that other scientists harnessed to invent the gene-editing technique called CRISPR.

• Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, who built on Barrangou’s and Horvath’s work to develop the CRISPR technique, for which they won the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

• Robert G. Bryant, a NASA chemist who developed a polymer used as an insulation material for leads in implantable cardiac devices.

• Lynn Conway, an electrical engineer who invented a new architecture for computer chips, called VLSI (very large-scale integration).

• Rory Cooper, a biomedical engineer and disabled U.S. Army veteran who made substantial improvements to manual and motorized wheelchairs.

• Angela Hartley Brodie, a biochemist who discovered a class of drugs called aromatase inhibitors, which can stop the production of hormones that fuel the growth of cancer cells.

• James A. Parsons Jr., a metallurgist who invented a corrosion-resistant alloy of stainless steel.

• Roger Tsien, a biochemist who invented green fluorescent protein, a powerful tool scientists use to track the activity inside living cells — a discovery for which he shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry.