Penn inventors make the mRNA-based COVID vaccines possible

As mRNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines continue to help hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide avoid the worst effects of the deadly global pandemic, Drew Weissman, MD, PhD, the Roberts Family Professor of Vaccine Research, and Katalin Karikó, PhD, an adjunct professor of Neurosurgery at Penn, have been awarded multiple prestigious prizes that recognize their prescient mRNA discoveries that laid the foundation for these vital life-saving products.

These prestigious recent awards include:

• The 2021 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award;
• The 2021 Albany Prize;
• The 2022 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences; and
• Both were recently named to the 2022 National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Featured articles:

• Penn Today article on the Breakthrough Prize
• Penn Medicine article on the Lasker Prize
• CNN article on the Lasker Prize