“Our own bodies can become factories for medicines”

Recognized with the 14th Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biology and Biomedicine, Katalin Karikó explains how her research contributed to the development of messenger RNA (mRNA) therapies, which enable our own cells to produce proteins for the protection and prevention of diseases. She emphasizes that this technology was developed over decades and was already being tested in clinical trials for heart and liver diseases before the pandemic, and that mRNA represents a versatile platform for future treatments and gene therapies.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biology and Biomedicine has gone in this fourteenth edition to Katalin Karikó, Robert Langer and Drew Weissman “for their contributions to messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and delivery technology that enable our own cells to produce proteins for disease protection and treatment,” remarked the committee in its citation.