Dödligt virus från Kina orsakar panik (SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19)

/.../The abridged version is that when Malone was a graduate student in biology in the late 1980s at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, he injected genetic material—DNA and RNA—into the cells of mice in hopes of creating a new kind of vaccine. He was the first author on a 1989 paper demonstrating how RNA could be delivered into cells using lipids, which are basically tiny globules of fat, and a co-author on a 1990 Science paper showing that if you inject pure RNA or DNA into mouse muscle cells, it can lead to the transcription of new proteins. If the same approach worked for human cells, the latter paper said in its conclusion, this technology “may provide alternative approaches to vaccine development.”

These two studies do indeed represent seminal work in the field of gene transfer, according to Rein Verbeke, a postdoctoral fellow at Ghent University, in Belgium, and the lead author of a 2019 history of mRNA-vaccine development. (Indeed, Malone’s studies are the first two references in Verbeke’s paper, out of 224 in total.) Verbeke told me he believes that Malone and his co-authors “sparked for the first time the hope that mRNA could have potential as a new drug class,” though he also notes that “the achievement of the mRNA vaccines of today is the accomplishment of a lot of collaborative efforts.”

Malone says he deserves credit for more than just sparking hope. He dropped out of graduate school in 1988, just short of his Ph.D., and went to work at a pharmaceutical company called Vical. Now he claims that both the Salk Institute and Vical profited from his work and essentially prevented him from further pursuing his research. (A Salk Institute spokesperson said that nothing in the institute’s records substantiates Malone’s allegations. The biotech company into which Vical was merged, Brickell, did not respond to requests for comment.) To say that Malone remains bitter over this perceived mistreatment doesn’t do justice to his sense of aggrievement. He calls what happened to him “intellectual rape.”

It is Dr. Katalin Karikó and her collaborator Dr. Drew Weissman who are more commonly credited with laying the groundwork for mRNA vaccines. In 1989, Malone published a paper titled "Cationic liposome-mediated RNA transfection." While Malone's research may have been important, scientific breakthroughs don't always boast a sole "inventor." Instead, they come about through the work of many.