Katalin Karikó

Professor Katalin Karikó’s research has for decades focused on RNA-mediated mechanisms, with the ultimate goal of developing in vitro-transcribed mRNA for protein therapy. She investigated RNA-mediated immune activation and co-discovered (with Penn Medicine colleague Drew Weissman) that nucleoside modifications suppress the immunogenicity of RNA, which has widened the therapeutic potential of mRNA in treating diseases. Professor Karikó and Professor Weissman found a way to modify mRNA and later developed a delivery technique to package the mRNA in lipid nanoparticles. This made it possible for mRNA to reach the proper part of the body and trigger an immune response to fight disease. Since mRNA synthesized with this laboratory technology is extremely stable, further modifications resulted in an effective tool for achieving high output production of the coded protein in the targeted cells. This achievement opened wide potential opportunities to protein supplementation and in the treatment of numerous genetic disorders, even in experimental oncological therapies.