Abington resident Katalin Karikó has played a significant role in helping the University of Pennsylvania become the top U.S. research institution for licensing revenue, nearly by a factor of two.

Karikó was working with her University of Pennsylvania colleague Drew Weissman when the pair discovered how to alter RNA molecules to prevent harmful overreaction by the immune system. They published the first of a series of studies in 2005, information which became the building blocks for the COVID-19 vaccine.

Moderna and Pfizer have each used a version of those building blocks in their vaccines.

Karikó and Weissman have since received the world’s most prestigious awards for their discovery, including the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, the Breakthrough Prize and the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research.

The Philadelphia Inquirer recently covered UPenn’s boom in revenue, which has largely been driven by COVID vaccines. For their coverage, you can click here.

For UPenn’s number-one ranking announcement, you can click here.

Photo courtesy of Penn Medicine