How We Almost Blew the Vaccine
Unsung Science
CBS News
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 October 2021
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It may seem as though we got the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines incredibly quickly. But Hungarian biochemist Katalin Karikó had been trying to make mRNA vaccines work for 30 years while fighting scientific gatekeepers who thought her idea was absurd. Her grants were denied, her papers rejected, her speaking invitations withdrawn; eventually, the University of Pennsylvania demoted her. But she still refused to quit, and in 2005, she and collaborator Drew Weissman cracked the code. They figured out how mRNA could direct our own cells to manufacture medicines to order. Their breakthrough saved the world from the worst of the pandemic—and opened a new world of medicines and vaccines for a huge range of diseases.
Guests: Katalin Karikó, senior VP at BioNTech. Drew Weissman, Perelman School of Medicine, U Penn. Derek Rossi, co-founder of Moderna.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hungarian biochemist Cataline Carrico spent 17 years working on a medical |
| 0:07.6 | idea that was so far-fetched the scientific community soundly denied her |
| 0:12.8 | grant proposals. You know I was demoted from my position. Why were you demoted? |
| 0:17.8 | Oh because I didn't get funding. And in the end she did it. She and her |
| 0:23.1 | collaborator invented the mRNA vaccine. Without her there would be no COVID |
| 0:28.6 | vaccines from Moderna or Pfizer. I'm David Poe. And this is UnSung Science. |
| 0:38.8 | Hey, prime members. You can listen to UnSung Science add free on Amazon Music. |
| 0:44.0 | Download the app today. For two decades FBI agent Robert Hansen sold secrets to |
| 0:49.4 | the Kremlin. He violated everything that my FBI stood for. Hansen was the most |
| 0:54.1 | damaging spy in FBI history and his betrayals didn't end there. Do I hate him? |
| 0:58.8 | No, I don't hate anyone. But his motive. I would love to know what his two |
| 1:03.7 | motives so I can get that out of me. How did he do it? Why? Follow agent of |
| 1:08.7 | betrayal to double life of Robert Hansen wherever you get your podcast. You can |
| 1:12.4 | listen add free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. |
| 1:16.7 | Season one episode two. How we almost blew the vaccine. As I sit here |
| 1:24.0 | recording this episode the COVID pandemic isn't what you'd call over but it's |
| 1:29.2 | definitely been beaten back. It's nothing like the death eater Armageddon. It |
| 1:33.5 | would have been if we hadn't had the vaccines. And I'm not sure you realize how |
| 1:39.0 | miraculous it is that we got a COVID vaccine so done fast. Scientists |
| 1:45.5 | analyzed the coronavirus for the first time in January 2020 and the Pfizer and |
| 1:51.0 | Moderna vaccines entered clinical testing in April three months later. And then |
| 1:59.1 | went into the arms of the first patients in December. It was by far the quickest |
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