Penn’s Katalin Karikó, Adjunct Professor of Neurosurgery, and Drew Weissman, Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research, Director of Vaccine Research, Infectious Diseases Division Director, and Penn’s Institute for RNA Innovation, were named to the National Inventors Hall of Fame for their foundational mRNA research which helped to make covid-19 vaccines possible.
Since their rollout, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been administered to billions of people and have helped to save millions of lives to date. Karikó and Weissman’s mRNA discoveries over more than the last two decades are also the basis for experimental treatments against cancer as well as heart disease. Read more about the National Inventors Hall of Fame here.