A Blueprint for Serendipity: How Lab Design Helped Fight COVID-19
In 1998, biochemist Katalin Karikó bumped into Drew Weissman while waiting to make some photocopies in a research facility where they both worked. The rest, to beat on an old cliche, is history. A microbiologist, Weissman was intrigued by messenger RNA (mRNA) which brings our cells the blueprints for our DNA. Karikó, meanwhile, was convinced that mRNA could unlock cures for devastating diseases like cancers. That early chance conversation led to a series of events that eventually allowed a novel technology to become a crucial tool in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Working together for more than 20 years. Weissman and Karikó developed the fundamental technology that is reshaping vaccine and gene therapy today. This chance encounter may well turn out to have the long lasting, life-saving effect that the discovery of penicillin or the development of the polio vaccine has had on the world. Read more