The mRNA technology - a paradigm shift in medicine

„I imagine one day all the mRNA-based drugs will be in the fridge…”

Katalin Karikó was convinced that mRNA could be used to instruct cells to produce their own medicines, including vaccines. "I imagine one day having all the mRNA-based drugs in the fridge. And if somebody burns their hand while cooking, they just take out the RNA serum that's just right for that, which speeds up the healing," as she flashed a vision of the future in a short film about her as a researcher who won the Grande Médaille Prize in 2021, showing her as if she was applying ointment to the imaginary wound.

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In 2012, the synthetic mRNA was successfully injected into animal bodies and then the first preclinical trials of mRNA-based vaccines began. Five years later, the first vaccine against Zika virus containing modified mRNA in a lipid envelope was produced. This result was shared by Norbert Pardi, an alumnus of the University of Szeged, and his alumni Katalin Karikó, and Drew Weissman, who became a research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.

This technology has become the basis for the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine used to combat the current pandemic. Their pioneering work has fuelled many advances and paved the way for future therapies.

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The world's first vaccine against COVID-19, the mRNA technology that is the harbringrer of a new era in medicine, and the leaders of the pioneering company BioNTech are being honoured by Germany's most prestigious science and technology prize, the Deutscher Zukunftspreis. The ceremony was attended by the three founders of BioNTech in Mainz - Uğur Şahin, Özlem Türeci, Christoph Huber - and its Vice President Katalin Karikó, honorary doctor and alumnus of the University of Szeged.

For basic immunology research, Katalin Karikó, researcher of BioNTech and the University of Pennsylvania, Drew Weissman, a Penn researcher, and BioNTech co-founders Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci have been awarded the 2021 William B. Coley Prize by the Cancer Research Institute (CRI). This expressed CRI's belief that mRNA vaccine technology will transform cancer treatment in the future.

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A leading figure in the development of new approaches to fight cancer and infectious diseases is Uğur Şahin, whom CRI describes as "one of the world's foremost experts in the field of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) drugs". Özlem Türeci has translational and clinical experience and has contributed to the discovery of anti-cancer antigens, as well as mRNA-based and other types of immunotherapies currently in clinical development.

The mRNA-LNP technology is "conquering the world". Its introduction and the establishment of a Hungarian research site suitable for the development and multi-purpose use of the technology is one of the sub-programs of the National Laboratory of Biotechnology (BNL) established at the Szeged Biological Research Center. To this end, Norbert Pardi is working together with researchers from the BNL. According to Miklós Erdélyi, Director of the Institute of Genetics, SZBK, and leader of a sub-programme of BNL: "Beyond vaccination, mRNA- LNP technology can be the basis for all experimental, biotechnological and therapeutic procedures where we want to produce a specific protein or proteins in cells without modifying the hereditary material of the cells. Proteins with medicinal properties can be produced in cell cultures or even in patients' bodies. Proteins missing in patients due to genetic disease can be replaced. We can produce stem cell-derived factors from body cells, making stem cell procedures cheaper. Factors that influence the fate of stem cells can be used to target different cell types for use in restorative medicine. Immune cells that recognise cancer cells can be produced. The applications are almost only limited by the imagination."

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