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Seems incredible now the University of Pennsylvania told the inventor mRNA that their contributions weren't worthwhile and let them go. https://billypenn.com/2

by s_dev 5y ago

Seems incredible now the University of Pennsylvania told the inventor mRNA that their contributions weren't worthwhile and let them go. https://billypenn.com/2020/12/29/university-pennsylvania-covid-vaccine-mrna-kariko-demoted-biontech-pfizer/ https://billypenn.com/2020/12/29/university-pennsylvania-cov... And now on social media they've done a full 180 and are acting as if it were their contribution to the world when the reality is quite different.

marcinzm 5y ago
As I see it, the issue isn't with the University of Pennsylvania but with academia. Publish or perish. Get consistent grants or find a new job. The system isn't geared to promoting long term risky endeavors.
- visarga 5y ago
  > The system isn't geared to promoting long term risky endeavors. They made a mistake by trying to follow the obvious path towards progress, and the result proves how wrong they were. The path was deceptive and the straight direction was leading to detours. This problem appears also in AI. Optimization only works when you can point to the solution. Evolution on the other hand can find these hidden stepping stones that initially don't appear useful, but it takes time. In my opinion lots of the scientific research is just following the trends instead of finding these hidden stepping stones. Only very few are committed to searching so far from the beaten road.
gambler 5y ago
>Seems incredible now the University of Pennsylvania told the inventor mRNA that their contributions weren't worthwhile and let them go. Incredible from common sense perspective, but totally expected if you know how American academia operates these days.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  I don't think it was common sense 30 years ago that this technology would eventually pay off. I imagine things looked pretty grim for the first 24 years the university employed her to work on it with little commercial traction, and the technology was only finally demonstrated due to a freak global pandemic 7 years after that.
s1artibartfast 5y ago
Im not sure what exactly the criticism of UPenn is here. Is the criticism that the university mistreated Karikó or set unrealistic expectations? IS the criticism that the university lacked the foresight to know how valuable her contributions would be 30 years later and didn't adequately support or compensate her? I don’t know where this idea that untenured university faculty should should not be expected to meet the objectives and and milestones of the university comes from. They took the risk and employed her for 16 years (1989-2005) before she published a groundbreaking study, then another 8 years, before leaving to be a VP at BioNTech. 7 years later, the technology was demonstrated to be incredibly valuable. Does U Penn deserve no credit for the 24 years of work done by university faculty and researchers in university labs?
- guitarbill 5y ago
  We know it's hard to predict the future, and how research might be useful - lasers are a famous example. So yeah, research institutions tying research to the value of the contributions, instead of rewarding quality research is maybe worthy of criticism (but sadly common). Personally, I'd guess it's the two-faced-ness of it all is a bigger one. Not being supportive, i.e. demoting/blocking tenure for Karikó, while at the same time being happy to patent the research, trying to use it as PR 7 years later (once it was shown to be useful), and potentially strategically omitting details. Just leaves a bad taste behind when you find out about the background. Probably without the PR, there'd be less criticism.

by s_dev 5y ago

marcinzm 5y ago

As I see it, the issue isn't with the University of Pennsylvania but with academia. Publish or perish. Get consistent grants or find a new job. The system isn't geared to promoting long term risky endeavors.

visarga 5y ago
> The system isn't geared to promoting long term risky endeavors. They made a mistake by trying to follow the obvious path towards progress, and the result proves how wrong they were. The path was deceptive and the straight direction was leading to detours. This problem appears also in AI. Optimization only works when you can point to the solution. Evolution on the other hand can find these hidden stepping stones that initially don't appear useful, but it takes time. In my opinion lots of the scientific research is just following the trends instead of finding these hidden stepping stones. Only very few are committed to searching so far from the beaten road.

gambler 5y ago

>Seems incredible now the University of Pennsylvania told the inventor mRNA that their contributions weren't worthwhile and let them go. Incredible from common sense perspective, but totally expected if you know how American academia operates these days.

s1artibartfast 5y ago
I don't think it was common sense 30 years ago that this technology would eventually pay off. I imagine things looked pretty grim for the first 24 years the university employed her to work on it with little commercial traction, and the technology was only finally demonstrated due to a freak global pandemic 7 years after that.

s1artibartfast 5y ago

Im not sure what exactly the criticism of UPenn is here. Is the criticism that the university mistreated Karikó or set unrealistic expectations? IS the criticism that the university lacked the foresight to know how valuable her contributions would be 30 years later and didn't adequately support or compensate her? I don’t know where this idea that untenured university faculty should should not be expected to meet the objectives and and milestones of the university comes from. They took the risk and employed her for 16 years (1989-2005) before she published a groundbreaking study, then another 8 years, before leaving to be a VP at BioNTech. 7 years later, the technology was demonstrated to be incredibly valuable. Does U Penn deserve no credit for the 24 years of work done by university faculty and researchers in university labs?

guitarbill 5y ago
We know it's hard to predict the future, and how research might be useful - lasers are a famous example. So yeah, research institutions tying research to the value of the contributions, instead of rewarding quality research is maybe worthy of criticism (but sadly common). Personally, I'd guess it's the two-faced-ness of it all is a bigger one. Not being supportive, i.e. demoting/blocking tenure for Karikó, while at the same time being happy to patent the research, trying to use it as PR 7 years later (once it was shown to be useful), and potentially strategically omitting details. Just leaves a bad taste behind when you find out about the background. Probably without the PR, there'd be less criticism.