The tangled history of mRNA vaccines

Elie Dolgin • September 14, 2021

Hundreds of scientists had worked on mRNA vaccines for decades before the coronavirus pandemic brought a breakthrough.

The debate over who deserves credit for pioneering the technology is heating up as awards start rolling out — and the speculation is getting more intense in advance of the Nobel prize announcements next month. But formal prizes restricted to only a few scientists will fail to recognize the many contributors to mRNA’s medical development. In reality, the path to mRNA vaccines drew on the work of hundreds of researchers over more than 30 years.


Read more at Nature.

By Elie Dolgin April 2, 2026
A shadow-sensing skill known as skototaxis helps cicadas find trees to molt on.
By Elie Dolgin April 1, 2026
In a small trial, the simulation pinpoints the source of faulty beats and speeds procedure time.