With Nobel Prize in medicine, a new laurel for ‘eds and meds’ in Philadelphia | Editorial

Philadelphia is known as the cradle of American democracy, the home of passionate sports fans, gritty determination, and distinctive architecture. It’s also the birthplace of research that stands to revolutionize cancer treatment and make possible lifesaving vaccines that have protected billions of people around the world.

On Monday, the Nobel Prize committee recognized University of Pennsylvania scientists Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their work on messenger RNA — discoveries that proved crucial in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is a well-deserved honor that should continue to cement Philadelphia’s place among the top cities for life sciences.

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Messenger RNA, or mRNA, is how the body sends instructions to the cells that compose all living things. By using mRNA, our immune systems can learn how to fight diseases without a previous infection. Scientists have long been intrigued by the concept, but implementation proved to be difficult, and over time, what seemed like a quixotic pursuit fell to a few dedicated researchers.

It wouldn’t be a Philly tale without an underdog, so fittingly, Karikó’s work went largely unappreciated for years.

She famously made less than $60,000 a year, was demoted from her tenure track position, and struggled to find grant money. Once she and Weissman were ready to publish their findings in 2005, they were rejected by mainstream scientific journals Nature and Science.

Of her treatment at Penn, Karikó has said, “Usually, at that point, people just say goodbye and leave, because it’s so horrible.” But she stuck around. When she eventually did depart, taking a position at a pharmaceutical company, she knew what she had accomplished. She told her old boss, “In the future, this lab will be a museum. Don’t touch it.”

She was right.

In the first year after their introduction, mRNA vaccines were credited with preventing nearly 18 million hospitalizations and three million deaths in the U.S. alone. Nearly one in every 100 Americans owes their life to these vaccines, and over 5% of the country avoided a hospital stay. No wonder the Commonwealth Fund credits them with saving roughly $1 trillion in medical costs.

It is apt that Karikó and Weissman met while waiting in line for a photocopier at Penn, the type of productive, spontaneous interaction that became unimaginable during the initial stages of the pandemic. The pair’s work has enabled so many people across the globe to hold weddings, mourn relatives, attend concerts and sporting events, and share life in public spaces.

Beyond its health-care benefits, medical research is also a powerful part of our local economy.

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“Eds and meds” dominate Philadelphia’s list of high-paid jobs, a recent Econsult study placed the city at No. 2 for cell and gene therapy, and nearly a billion dollars in venture capital is following the field into the city. This is growth that Philly can justly celebrate.

Still, despite these successes, the city was passed over by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, the federal government’s newest health-care research arm. While Philadelphia will still serve as a “spoke” for the agency, Boston and Dallas are getting new multibillion-dollar headquarters. They are the hubs. Perhaps our reputation for not embracing innovation — as Pennsylvania lags behind other states in number of patents, new companies, and jobs in technologically advanced industries — is partly to blame.

This accomplishment is also a reminder of the benefits of immigration. Like many successful American scientists, Karikó was born abroad, in Hungary. Today’s tough immigration laws, and a general shortage of H-1B visas, mean fewer skilled workers can move to and stay in the U.S. This has raised costs for STEM fields and made it less likely that major innovations will occur in the United States going forward.

Philadelphians should be proud of our Nobel winners — and embrace science pioneers as a part of our city’s identity.