The NIH Grants Behind the Karikó–Weissman Research

Table of Contents

1. What Dr. Ardis Says About the Funding
2. How to Read an NIH Grant Record
3. The Grants, Decade by Decade
4. What the Papers Themselves Declare
5. What Began in 2009
6. “Anthony Fauci’s Department”
7. Where COVID-19 Enters the Record
8. Their Small Company, RNARx
9. How to Check the Record Yourself
10. Key Research Papers
11. Connections
12. Featured Videos

1. What Dr. Ardis Says About the Funding

Dr. Ardis has made the funding point in at least two places, and his own show has titled a clip on it. Here are his words as published.

The 2025 podcast

On Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, a Turning Point USA podcast, in the episode “Nicotine Is NOT the Villain: What Big Pharma Hides From Parents | Dr. Bryan Ardis, DC” (aired May 2025, one hour long), at 29:03 in the read-along transcript. The auto-generated transcript spells the names “Cataline Carico”; they are spelled correctly here.

Their names are Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman. And when you go look at their research studies, they were funded by the NIH starting in 2009 to develop these COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Strange. And in every one of those research studies, they state snake venom phosphodiesterase, snake venom…

The film Watch the Water 2

In the Stew Peters film Watch the Water 2, from the full transcript published on 15 January 2024 (two words are trimmed, marked […]):

My concerns over why the vaccines have snake venom in it is because the two people credited with creating the Covid19 mRNA shots, their names are Drew Wiseman [sic] and Katalin Karikó at the University of Pennsylvania. So in every one of their […] studies since 2009, being paid for by Anthony Fauci and the NIH to do mRNA gene therapy…..that’s the funding declaration on their studies…. ‘We are funded by the NIH NIAID Department, Anthony Fauci’s Department to do mRNA gene therapy.’ Every study since 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015….every single one of their […] studies says that in order to cleave…cut RNA or DNA, they use snake venom phosphodiesterase….

A clip title on his own show

His show posted a clip titled “Covid Vax Synthetic Snake Venom Research Funded by NIH Grant to mRNA Scientists Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman 2008 & 2011” — naming 2008 and 2011, the years of the two joint papers in which the words “snake venom” appear. Both papers’ funding sentences are copied word for word in section 4.

Taken together, his words make four statements that documents can be set beside: that the NIH funding began in 2009; that the money was to develop the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, or to “do mRNA gene therapy”; that it came through NIAID, “Anthony Fauci’s Department”; and that the papers’ funding declarations say so. Sections 3 to 7 take them in turn. The other half of the same sentence — snake venom phosphodiesterase — has its own page, Snake Venom Phosphodiesterase in the Karikó–Weissman Papers, and the D-dimer blood test that led him to these papers is on D-Dimer and Snake Venom: Dr. Ardis on Blood Clots After Vaccination.

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2. How to Read an NIH Grant Record

NIH RePORTER is the NIH’s public ledger. Every funded project has a page showing its title, the institute that manages it, the scientist or scientists in charge, the university or company that receives the money, the project’s start and end dates, and the dollars awarded in each fiscal year (the U.S. government’s year, which begins on 1 October). Anyone can search it, free, without an account.

The principal investigator

The principal investigator (PI) is the scientist who leads a project and answers for it. A grant can name one or several. RePORTER files every project under its principal investigators’ names — which also means a scientist does not appear under his or her own name for work paid for by somebody else’s grant. Sections 4 and 7 show examples.

The activity code: what kind of grant it is

The letters and digits at the front of a grant number say what sort of award it is. These are the NIH’s own definitions, from its activity code list, with a plain-words gloss:

• R01 — the standard research-project grant: support for “a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s).”
• R21 — an exploratory grant, “to encourage the development of new research activities”; the NIH adds that support “generally is restricted in level of support and in time.”
• R33 — the follow-on phase of an R21: “a second phase for the support for innovative exploratory and development research activities initiated under the R21 mechanism.”
• R41 and R42 — STTR (Small Business Technology Transfer) grants, phase I and phase II, “to help small businesses that partner with a nonprofit research institution bring scientific innovations to the marketplace.”
• U19 — a cooperative research programme: “a research program of multiple projects directed toward a specific major objective.”
• UM1 — a large cooperative project “with complicated structures, e.g. clinical networks, research programs or consortium.”
• P51 — a primate research centre grant, which maintains “a large and varied primate colony” for affiliated and visiting scientists. RePORTER lists the sub-projects inside it under their own leaders.
• T32 — a training grant: an institutional award for “predoctoral and postdoctoral research training.”

The institute

The two letters after the activity code name the part of the NIH that manages the grant. The ones on this page:

• AI — NIAID, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
• HL — NHLBI, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
• NS — NINDS, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
• DE — NIDCR, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.
• RR — NCRR, the National Center for Research Resources, which managed the primate-centre grant on this page.
• DK — NIDDK, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

So R01AI050484 reads: a standard research grant (R01), managed by NIAID (AI), serial number 050484. The papers in section 4 write the same grant three ways — “AI-050484”, “R01AI50484” and “R01-AI050484” — and all three point to this one record.

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3. The Grants, Decade by Decade

Below is every project RePORTER lists with Karikó or Weissman as a principal investigator, read from the database on 3 October 2026. For each: the subject in plain words, the official title in quotation marks, the institute, the dates, the dollars RePORTER lists, and what the money was for. Totals add up the fiscal years RePORTER shows, so projects still running will grow. The timeline runs from 1990 to 2026, one bar per project, grouped by subject.

Read the picture from left to right: for more than two decades before the dashed January 2020 line, the bars are HIV, anemia, stroke and oral-antigen work — and no project title, on either side of that line, names a coronavirus.

1998–2013: HIV and the immune system

• HIV replication in activated immune cells — “Antigen specific activation and HIV replication”, R01HL062060, NHLBI. Weissman, University of Pennsylvania. 30 September 1998 to 31 August 2004; $1,543,708 (fiscal 1998–2002). The earliest project RePORTER lists under his name.
• Delivering RNA into dendritic cells to train the immune system against HIV — “RNA delivery for dendritic cell HIV antigen presentation”: first an exploratory grant, R21AI045318, NIAID, 1 August 1999 to 31 July 2001 ($475,500); then a standard grant under the same title, R01AI050484, NIAID, 1 May 2002 to 30 June 2013 ($3,610,125, fiscal 2002–2011). Dendritic cells are the immune system’s teachers: they show pieces of a germ to the cells that fight it. This was the subject of the pair’s first joint paper, in 2000, in which HIV gag mRNA put into human dendritic cells in the test tube made the cells display the HIV protein, matured them and set off an immune response (a cell study). R01AI050484 is also the NIAID grant credited in the 2008, 2010 and 2011 modified-mRNA papers (section 4).
• A human protein, gp-340, and HIV transmission — “Role of gp-340 in HIV infection and transmission”, R01AI060505, NIAID. Weissman. 15 June 2004 to 31 May 2010; $1,923,731 (fiscal 2004–2008).

2007–2013: anemia, stroke, an oral antigen, HIV prevention and HIV vaccines

• An mRNA treatment for anemia, through their small company — “Erythropoietin-encoding mRNA for treatment of anemia”, R42HL087688, NHLBI. Principal investigator Karikó; the money went to RNARx, the small company she and Weissman formed. 1 June 2007 to 30 June 2013; $896,821 — $97,396 in fiscal 2007, then a second phase from 4 July 2009 ($399,305 in fiscal 2009 and $400,120 in fiscal 2010). Erythropoietin (EPO) is the hormone that tells bone marrow to make red blood cells. The 2012 paper that credits this grant reported that sub-microgram doses of pseudouridine-containing EPO mRNA raised blood EPO and red-cell production in mice, with macaques also tested (an animal study).
• Stroke biology: “stress genes” in the brain — “Cerebral ischemia and expression of stress genes”, R01NS029331, NINDS, University of Pennsylvania. A long-running grant (1 May 1991 to 30 November 2012) led by Frank A. Welsh for fiscal 1991–2010; RePORTER lists Karikó as principal investigator for its final award, fiscal 2011 ($337,641). Cerebral ischemia means lost blood flow to part of the brain — what happens in a stroke. Welsh is a co-author of the 2008 modified-mRNA paper, which credits this grant.
• Delivering RNA that encodes an antigen, by mouth — “Oral delivery of RNA encoded antigen”, R21DE019059, NIDCR. Weissman. 15 March 2008 to 28 February 2011; $402,807 (fiscal 2008–2009). An antigen is the piece of a germ the immune system learns to recognise. Credited in the 2010 and 2011 papers.
• An HIV microbicide built on blocking two human molecules — “Gp340 and syndecan inhibition based microbicide for HIV”, NIAID. A microbicide here means a product meant to stop HIV being passed on during sex. First an exploratory grant, R21AI082701, from 15 September 2009 ($436,656 in fiscal 2009–2010, of which $37,500 each year came from the NIH Office of the Director); then its follow-on phase, R33AI082701, to 31 July 2017 ($1,433,450 in fiscal 2012–2014). Weissman.
• Designing HIV vaccine proteins — “Optimizing HIV Env immunogens for T and B cell vaccine responses”, R01AI090788, NIAID. Weissman and James A. Hoxie. 1 July 2010 to 30 June 2015; $2,310,763 (fiscal 2010–2013). Env is the HIV envelope protein; an immunogen is the part a vaccine shows the immune system.
• A monkey study at a primate centre — “Immunization activates transient SIV viral replication”, a sub-project of the Tulane primate-centre grant P51RR000164, NCRR. Weissman. 1 May 2011 to 30 April 2012; $57,750. SIV is the monkey relative of HIV.

2016–2022: a modified-mRNA HIV vaccine and gene editing

• A nucleoside-modified mRNA HIV vaccine — “Nucleoside modified mRNA based HIV vaccine”, R01AI124429, NIAID. Weissman. 20 May 2016 to 30 April 2022; $3,377,543 (fiscal 2016–2019). “Nucleoside modified” is the pair’s 2005 discovery (a cell study): mRNA built with modified letters such as pseudouridine. A 2019 study of HIV mRNA vaccines in rabbits and rhesus macaques (an animal study) credits this grant, and so does the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 mouse study in section 7.
• RNA gene editing for hemophilia A — “In vivo RNA-mediated gene editing of hemophilia A”, R01HL134839, NHLBI. Weissman. 1 February 2017 to 31 January 2022; $2,808,777 (fiscal 2017–2020). Hemophilia A is the inherited bleeding disorder caused by too little clotting factor VIII.

2021 on: delivery, a C. difficile vaccine, the heart, transplants and the liver

• Steering RNA to blood vessels — “Vascular targeting of nanocarriers for RNA”, R01HL155106, NHLBI. Weissman and Vladimir R. Muzykantov. 5 February 2021 to 31 January 2026; $3,088,329 (fiscal 2021–2024).
• mRNA vaccines against C. difficile — “mVACS--mRNA Vaccines for C. difficile Suppression”, U19AI174998, NIAID, a multi-project research programme led by Weissman and Frederic D. Bushman. 1 March 2023 to 29 February 2028; RePORTER lists $1,529,954 a year for fiscal 2023–2026 ($6,119,816 so far). Inside it, Weissman leads Project 1, “Neutralizing and decolonizing Clostridioides difficile using mRNA vaccines” (listed at $1,200,796 across the same four years), and the administrative core. C. difficile is a gut bacterium that causes severe diarrhea, often after a course of antibiotics.
• RNA delivery to the heart — “Cardiac delivery of RNA to treat contractile disorder”, R01HL169448, NHLBI. Weissman, Kenneth B. Margulies and Vladimir R. Muzykantov. 1 July 2024 to 30 April 2028; $2,365,233 (fiscal 2024–2026). A contractile disorder is a weakness in the heart muscle’s squeeze.
• Four newer awards list Weissman as one of several principal investigators: kidney-transplant tolerance in monkeys (“Immune repertoire remodeling following B cell-targeted CAR T cells for induction of renal allograft tolerance in non-human primates”, R01AI190177, NIAID, from 13 May 2025, $3,263,554 in fiscal 2025–2026); an HIV cure strategy (“Individualized HIV Curative Combination Strategy against Persistent HIV on ART”, UM1AI191272, NIAID, at the Wistar Institute, from 7 July 2025, $6,938,197 in fiscal 2025–2026); cross-species kidney transplants (“Innovative Strategies to Inhibit Humoral Immunity in Renal Xenotransplantation”, R01AI201182, NIAID, from 18 September 2026, $1,339,047 in fiscal 2026); and end-stage liver disease (“Dissecting functional decompensation of end-stage liver disease and the mechanism and impact of transcription factors on long-term functional reprogramming”, R01DK145577, NIDDK, at the University of Pittsburgh, from 1 September 2026, $814,500 in fiscal 2026).

Three plain facts about this list. No project title in it names SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19. RePORTER lists Karikó as principal investigator on two awards only: the RNARx anemia grant and the final year of the stroke grant. And RePORTER files awards by principal investigator, so work the two did with money from other scientists’ grants, from companies or from foundations does not appear here under their names — the papers’ own funding sentences, next, show some of it.

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4. What the Papers Themselves Declare

Each paper below is co-authored by Karikó and Weissman. Each quotation is copied from the paper’s funding or conflict-of-interest statement, and the grant each number belongs to follows in plain words. What each paper found is set out on Karikó and Weissman’s Research, Paper by Paper.

2008 — pseudouridine mRNA (Molecular Therapy; cells and mice)

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants NIAID AI-050484, NHLBI HL87688, and NINDS NS-29331. … K.K. and D.W. have formed a small biotech company that receives funding from the NIH to explore the use of nucleoside-modified mRNA for gene therapy.

• AI-050484 is R01AI050484, “RNA delivery for dendritic cell HIV antigen presentation” (NIAID, Weissman).
• HL87688 is R42HL087688, “Erythropoietin-encoding mRNA for treatment of anemia” (NHLBI, Karikó, the RNARx company grant, then in its first phase).
• NS-29331 is R01NS029331, “Cerebral ischemia and expression of stress genes” (NINDS, then led by co-author Frank A. Welsh).

This is the 2008 paper of the clip title’s “2008 & 2011”.

2010 — pseudouridine mRNA and the PKR enzyme (Nucleic Acids Research; test tube)

The National Institutes of Health (R01AI50484, R21DE019059 to D.W. …)

• R01AI50484 is the NIAID HIV dendritic-cell RNA grant; R21DE019059 is “Oral delivery of RNA encoded antigen” (NIDCR, Weissman).

2011 — modified RNA, OAS and RNase L (Nucleic Acids Research; test tube)

National Institutes of Health (R01AI50484 and R21DE019059 to D.W.; T32GM07229, T32DK07748 and T32RR007063 to B.R.A.; R01NS029331 and R42HL87688 to K.K.; R01CA044059 to R.H.S).

K.K. and D.W. have formed a small biotech company RNARx that receives funding from the National Institutes of Health to explore the use of nucleoside-modified mRNA for gene therapy.

• To D.W.: the NIAID HIV dendritic-cell RNA grant and the NIDCR oral-antigen grant.
• To K.K.: the stroke grant (her fiscal-2011 year as its principal investigator) and the RNARx anemia grant.
• To B.R.A., the first author: three T32 training grants. To R.H.S.: a co-author’s own grant.

This is the 2011 paper of the clip title.

2012 — erythropoietin mRNA (Molecular Therapy; mice and macaques)

supported by National Institutes of Health (grant number R01NS029331 and R42HL87688 to K.K. …)

• The stroke grant and the RNARx anemia grant — and the paper reports the anemia work the company grant was written for.

2017 — a Zika vaccine (Nature; mice and monkeys)

Supported by the NIH, NIAID Duke Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology AI100645.

• AI100645 is UM1AI100645, “Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology and Immunogen Discovery” (NIAID), held at Duke University (principal investigator Barton F. Haynes), 2012–2019. It is not in section 3 because neither Karikó nor Weissman is its principal investigator.

2019 — HIV mRNA vaccines in rabbits and monkeys (Molecular Therapy – Nucleic Acids; animal study)

D.W. was supported by the NIAID of the NIH under award numbers R01-AI050484, R01-AI124429, and R01-AI084860 and by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD) 0PP1033102.

• R01-AI050484 is the HIV dendritic-cell RNA grant; R01-AI124429 is “Nucleoside modified mRNA based HIV vaccine” (NIAID, Weissman, from 2016). The third NIAID number does not appear under Weissman’s name in RePORTER, and the foundation grant is not NIH money.

Side by side

Dr. Ardis gives the declaration as: “We are funded by the NIH NIAID Department, Anthony Fauci’s Department to do mRNA gene therapy.” Across the sentences above, which date from 2008 to 2019, word by word:

• “NIH” or “National Institutes of Health” — in every one.
• “NIAID” — in the 2008, 2017 and 2019 sentences (and the 2020 one in section 7). The NIAID grant the 2008, 2010 and 2011 papers name is the HIV dendritic-cell RNA grant.
• “gene therapy” — in the 2008 and 2011 company sentences: the company “receives funding from the NIH to explore the use of nucleoside-modified mRNA for gene therapy.” The phrase is the scientists’ own; their 2015 commentary is titled “mRNA: Fulfilling the Promise of Gene Therapy.”
• “Anthony Fauci”, “COVID-19” and “SARS-CoV-2” — in none of these sentences.

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5. What Began in 2009

Dr. Ardis dates the funding from 2009. Here is what the record holds for that year.

• Papers. PubMed holds no paper co-authored by both Karikó and Weissman dated 2009; their joint papers on either side are from 2008 and 2010.
• New in 2009. Two periods of funding began. On 4 July 2009 the company grant for an EPO mRNA treatment for anemia (R42HL087688, NHLBI) entered its second phase — $399,305 that fiscal year and $400,120 the next. On 15 September 2009 the HIV-microbicide exploratory grant (R21AI082701, NIAID) began, with $219,338 in its first year.
• Continuing in 2009. The NIAID HIV dendritic-cell RNA grant (R01AI050484, renewed in July 2008; $393,750 in fiscal 2009) and the NIDCR oral-antigen grant (R21DE019059, from March 2008; $183,094 in fiscal 2009).
• Before 2009. NIH money had paid for Weissman’s projects since 1998, and the 2008 paper already credits three NIH grants, among them the company grant’s first phase ($97,396, fiscal 2007).

The four awards RePORTER lists for fiscal 2009 total $1,195,487, and their titles are about anemia, HIV and an oral antigen. The phase that began in July 2009 has a published result: the 2012 Molecular Therapy paper, in which sub-microgram doses of pseudouridine-containing mRNA encoding erythropoietin raised blood EPO and red-cell production in mice, with macaques also tested — an animal study, not a human trial. Its funding sentence names R42HL87688. How the body uses erythropoietin is shown in the animation How Your Body Makes Red Blood Cells (EPO).

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6. “Anthony Fauci’s Department”

NIAID, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was directed by Anthony Fauci from 1984 to 2022. Within those years, RePORTER lists six NIAID-managed projects with Weissman as principal investigator, and every one is an HIV project:

• R21AI045318 — “RNA delivery for dendritic cell HIV antigen presentation” (1999–2001).
• R01AI050484 — the same title (2002–2013).
• R01AI060505 — “Role of gp-340 in HIV infection and transmission” (2004–2010).
• R21AI082701 and R33AI082701 — “Gp340 and syndecan inhibition based microbicide for HIV” (2009–2017).
• R01AI090788 — “Optimizing HIV Env immunogens for T and B cell vaccine responses” (2010–2015).
• R01AI124429 — “Nucleoside modified mRNA based HIV vaccine” (2016–2022).

Their listed totals add up to $13,567,768 across fiscal 1999–2019. Karikó’s two awards came from other institutes: NHLBI (the anemia grant) and NINDS (the stroke grant). The NIAID awards with Weissman as a principal investigator that began after 2022 are the C. difficile programme (2023), the monkey kidney-transplant study and the HIV cure strategy (2025), and the cross-species kidney-transplant grant (2026).

One more plain fact connects Weissman with Anthony Fauci directly. The Nobel Committee’s scientific background on the 2023 prize says that after his residency, Weissman

joined Anthony Fauci’s group at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a post-doctoral fellowship to investigate how the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) interacts with target receptors on different types of immune cells.

He joined the University of Pennsylvania in 1997, and his first NIH grant there began the next year. The prize itself is covered on The 2023 Nobel Prize: Karikó and Weissman, and Dr. Fauci’s career on Anthony Fauci.

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7. Where COVID-19 Enters the Record

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was first identified in late December 2019 and January 2020; its genome was posted publicly on 10–11 January 2020 — the dashed line in the timeline above. From then on, the record holds two separate lines of COVID-19 vaccine work.

Weissman’s laboratory, 2020: a mouse study

In 2020 the Weissman laboratory published a study of nucleoside-modified mRNA vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 in mice (Immunity; Laczkó and colleagues). It is an animal study: the vaccines were given to mice, not people. Karikó is an author — the paper says she “designed the untranslated region of the mRNA.” Its acknowledgments say, word for word, of Weissman’s funding:

D.W. was supported by grants from the NIAID (AI142596 and AI124429) and BioNTech.

• AI124429 is Weissman’s own grant from section 3: “Nucleoside modified mRNA based HIV vaccine” (NIAID, 2016–2022).
• AI142596 is U19AI142596, “Messenger RNA Immunogens for initiation of protective HIV non-neutralizing antibodies” (NIAID), held at Duke University (principal investigator Barton F. Haynes), 2019–2023 — a programme building messenger-RNA vaccine components against HIV. It is not in section 3 because Weissman is not its principal investigator.
• BioNTech is the company Karikó joined in 2013, after leaving the University of Pennsylvania; the paper’s declaration of interests states, “K.K. is an employee of BioNTech.”

The same acknowledgments list the other authors’ support, including one line specific to coronaviruses: two co-authors “were supported by an administrative supplement to NIH R01 AI129868 for coronavirus research.” The declaration of interests adds that “D.W. and K.K. are named on patents that describe the use of nucleoside-modified mRNA as a platform to deliver therapeutic proteins.”

NIAID’s own Vaccine Research Center, 2020

Separately, government scientists at NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center worked on a COVID-19 vaccine with the company Moderna. Their 2020 Nature paper, by authors from the Vaccine Research Center, Moderna and university laboratories, describes mRNA-1273 — a vaccine whose mRNA encodes a SARS-CoV-2 spike protein “stabilized in the prefusion conformation” — and reports that it protected mice against infection in the lungs and nose. It is a mouse study; the paper notes the vaccine was by then in a phase III trial. Neither Karikó nor Weissman is among its authors. How the 2005 modified-letter discovery reached the COVID-19 vaccines is on From Pseudouridine to the COVID-19 Vaccines.

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8. Their Small Company, RNARx

Here is everything the documents on this page say about RNARx, and nothing more.

• The 2008 paper: “K.K. and D.W. have formed a small biotech company that receives funding from the NIH to explore the use of nucleoside-modified mRNA for gene therapy.”
• The 2011 paper: the same sentence, now with the name — “a small biotech company RNARx that receives funding from the National Institutes of Health to explore the use of nucleoside-modified mRNA for gene therapy.”
• RePORTER: one NIH award to RNARx, the STTR small-business grant “Erythropoietin-encoding mRNA for treatment of anemia” (R42HL087688, NHLBI), principal investigator Karikó, June 2007 to June 2013, $896,821 across fiscal 2007, 2009 and 2010. A RePORTER search by organisation name finds no other award to the company.
• What it produced: the 2012 erythropoietin mRNA paper in mice and macaques, which credits the grant.
• Later statements: the 2019 and 2020 conflict-of-interest statements do not mention the company. They disclose patents instead — “K.K. and D.W. are named on patents that describe the use of nucleoside-modified mRNA as a platform to deliver therapeutic proteins” — and the 2020 statement adds Karikó’s employment at BioNTech and says the authors “have an approved plan for managing any potential conflicts arising from licensing of our patents in place.”

One patent of that description is US 8,278,036 B2, “RNA containing modified nucleosides and methods of use thereof”: inventors Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman; assignee, the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania; priority date 23 August 2005, filed 21 August 2006, granted 2 October 2012.

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9. How to Check the Record Yourself

1. Search RePORTER by name. At reporter.nih.gov, search by principal investigator (“Weissman, Drew” or “Kariko, Katalin”). Each project page shows its title, institute, dates and the amount for every fiscal year. Our search on 3 October 2026 returned the 19 projects in section 3.
2. Look up a grant number. When a paper prints a number such as “AI-050484”, search RePORTER for the project number (R01AI050484) to see its title, institute and holder.
3. Find the papers. In PubMed, the search Kariko K[au] AND Weissman D[au] returns their 34 joint papers (2000–2022); the link is under PubMed Topic Searches below.
4. Read the funding sentence. Open a paper’s full text — PubMed Central holds 20 of their 22 joint papers from 2008 on — and find the Acknowledgments or Funding paragraph and the conflict-of-interest or Declaration of Interests paragraph. Grant numbers are printed there, usually with the initials of the scientist who holds each one.
5. Remember what RePORTER leaves out. It files projects under their principal investigators. A scientist’s share of somebody else’s grant, company money and foundation money appear only in the papers.

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Key Research Papers

1. Weissman D, Ni H, Scales D, et al. (2000). HIV gag mRNA transfection of dendritic cells (DC) delivers encoded antigen to MHC class I and II molecules, causes DC maturation, and induces a potent human in vitro primary immune response. J Immunol. — PubMed PMID: 11035115
2. Karikó K, Buckstein M, Ni H, Weissman D (2005). Suppression of RNA recognition by Toll-like receptors: the impact of nucleoside modification and the evolutionary origin of RNA. Immunity. — PubMed PMID: 16111635
3. Karikó K, Muramatsu H, Welsh FA, et al. (2008). Incorporation of pseudouridine into mRNA yields superior nonimmunogenic vector with increased translational capacity and biological stability. Mol Ther. — PubMed PMID: 18797453
4. Anderson BR, Muramatsu H, Nallagatla SR, et al. (2010). Incorporation of pseudouridine into mRNA enhances translation by diminishing PKR activation. Nucleic Acids Res. — PubMed PMID: 20457754
5. Anderson BR, Muramatsu H, Jha BK, et al. (2011). Nucleoside modifications in RNA limit activation of 2'-5'-oligoadenylate synthetase and increase resistance to cleavage by RNase L. Nucleic Acids Res. — PubMed PMID: 21813458
6. Karikó K, Muramatsu H, Keller JM, Weissman D (2012). Increased erythropoiesis in mice injected with submicrogram quantities of pseudouridine-containing mRNA encoding erythropoietin. Mol Ther. — PubMed PMID: 22334017
7. Weissman D, Karikó K (2015). mRNA: Fulfilling the Promise of Gene Therapy. Mol Ther. — PubMed PMID: 26321183
8. Pardi N, Hogan MJ, Pelc RS, et al. (2017). Zika virus protection by a single low-dose nucleoside-modified mRNA vaccination. Nature. — PubMed PMID: 28151488
9. Pardi N, LaBranche CC, Ferrari G, et al. (2019). Characterization of HIV-1 Nucleoside-Modified mRNA Vaccines in Rabbits and Rhesus Macaques. Mol Ther Nucleic Acids. — PubMed PMID: 30974332
10. Corbett KS, Edwards DK, Leist SR, et al. (2020). SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine design enabled by prototype pathogen preparedness. Nature. — PubMed PMID: 32756549
11. Laczkó D, Hogan MJ, Toulmin SA, et al. (2020). A Single Immunization with Nucleoside-Modified mRNA Vaccines Elicits Strong Cellular and Humoral Immune Responses against SARS-CoV-2 in Mice. Immunity. — PubMed PMID: 32783919

PubMed Topic Searches

1. PubMed: Papers by Karikó and Weissman together
2. PubMed: Nucleoside-modified mRNA HIV vaccines
3. PubMed: Erythropoietin mRNA with pseudouridine

External Authoritative Resources

• NIH RePORTER — the NIH’s public database of funded projects; search by principal investigator or project number.
• NIH Grants & Funding: Activity Codes — the official definitions of R01, R21, R33, R41/R42, U19, UM1, P51 and T32 quoted in section 2.
• The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023 — Advanced information (scientific background) — source of the sentence on Weissman’s NIH fellowship in Anthony Fauci’s group.
• Full text of the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 mouse study (PubMed Central) — its Acknowledgments and Declaration of Interests are quoted in section 7.
• Full text of the 2019 HIV mRNA vaccine study (PubMed Central) — its funding sentence is quoted in section 4.
• Watch the Water 2 — full transcript, published 15 January 2024 — the source of Dr. Ardis’s film quotation in section 1.

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Connections

• All Notable Doctors
• Karikó & Weissman — the hub: the prize, the 2005 discovery, the trials and the safety record.
• Snake Venom Phosphodiesterase in the Karikó–Weissman Papers — the other half of Dr. Ardis’s sentence, set beside the papers.
• Karikó and Weissman’s Research, Paper by Paper — what the papers these grants paid for found.
• From Pseudouridine to the COVID-19 Vaccines — how the 2005 discovery reached the vaccines.
• The 2023 Nobel Prize: Karikó and Weissman — what the committee rewarded.
• D-Dimer and Snake Venom: Dr. Ardis on Blood Clots After Vaccination — the argument that led him to these papers, in his words.
• Dr. Bryan Ardis — his work and his account of it.
• Anthony Fauci — NIAID director from 1984 to 2022, the years NIAID managed Weissman’s HIV grants.
• HIV/AIDS — the disease most of these grants were about.
• Anemia — what the RNARx erythropoietin mRNA grant set out to treat.
• How Your Body Makes Red Blood Cells (EPO) — an animation of the hormone that grant’s mRNA encoded.
• Stroke — the subject of the cerebral-ischemia grant.
• Hemophilia — the target of the 2017 gene-editing grant.
• Clostridioides difficile Infection — the target of the 2023 mRNA vaccine programme.
• Beutler, Hoffmann & Steinman — the 2011 Nobel for dendritic cells, the cells Weissman’s early HIV grants worked with.

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