For decades, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Robert Langer believed that scientists could deliver large molecules, such as RNA, via small particles to treat a variety of diseases. In 1979, when he told a group of senior scientists about the idea of drug delivery at a Chinese restaurant, one of them blew cigar smoke in his face.
“Better start looking for another job,” said the scientist.
After “about 200 to 300 failures,” Langer’s team returned to the 1976 published papers of Nature. Still, he faced a string of grant denials and skepticism. His research into drug delivery, which inspired him to co-found Moderna in 2010, proved critical in the company’s development of his Covid-19 vaccine.shot scraped up surpassed $18 billion last year, saved millions of life.
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