After a decade of trial and error, Karikó and her longtime collaborator at Penn — Drew Weissman, an immunologist with a medical degree and Ph.D. from Boston University — found a remedy for mRNA’s Achilles’ heel. In the pure world, the physique depends on tens of millions of tiny proteins to keep itself alive and healthy, and it makes use of mRNA to inform cells which proteins to make. If you could design your personal mRNA, you would, in concept, hijack that course of and create any protein you might desire — antibodies to vaccinate in opposition to an infection, enzymes to reverse a uncommon disease, or progress brokers to mend broken heart tissue. Her work, making an attempt to harness the power of mRNA to fight illness, was too far-fetched for presidency grants, company funding, and even support from her own colleagues. Even now, as Moderna and Pfizer check …