Gates Package — page 1031

only Early efforts didn't work, although a test of a rabies vaccine showed promise. Still, Karikó and her BioNTech colleague persevered, as did scientists at Moderna. When COVID hit, they immediately set out to make a vaccine for the new virus. It was a good bet. The notion that mapping a virus's genome would allow you to create an mRNA vaccine in a matter of weeks proved to be exactly right. In March 2020, just six weeks after scientists sequenced the COVID virus's genome, Moderna announced that it had identified an mRNA-based candidate and begun making it for clinical trials. On December 31, the mRNA vaccine made by BioNTech in partnership with Pfizer was approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization. When Karikó received the first dose of the vaccine she had done so much to create--a few days before it was officially approved--she wept. <~?~Insert art 029_Gate_9780593534489_art_r1> <~?~NO CAPTION FOR THIS ILLUSTRATION (This illustration shows how information coded in an mRNA vaccine can imitate components of a virus and then inform human cells about the potential threats it may encounter, effectively boosting the immune system.)> It is hard to overstate the impact that mRNA vaccines have had on COVID. In many places, they account for virtually all of the COVID vaccinations. As of late 2021, more than 83 percent of vaccinated people in the European Union had received a vaccine made by either Pfizer or Moderna, both of which use mRNA. In the U.S., 96 percent had. Japan used only mRNA vaccines.13 To me, the moral of the mRNA story is this: Be willing to bet on crazy-sounding ideas, because they might be just the breakthrough you need. It took years of work to advance our understanding of mRNA far enough that we could use it to develop vaccines. We are lucky COVID didn't come along five years earlier.