By Andrea Hargraves 
Science time: In the 1990s, Katalin Kariko, a Hungarian scientist working in the United States, rejected her proposals to fund the development of immunological studies on messenger RNA (mRNA), leading the University of Pennsylvania to hold up her eventual appointment as an instructor.
In 2013, Karikó was hired by BioNTech to develop treatments using mRNA, having published 150 scientific articles on the topic in the past eight years, without resorting to public funds. Work on mRNA enabled the company to develop solutions ‘in the lab’, by computer, without access to biological materials, and as soon as China announced its first genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 virus, the Pfizer consortium – BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson started The work that would compose the first vaccines.
Applying virus-representative mRNA to cells of the immune system has proven to be a less risky, more versatile, and faster solution to manufacture than conventional vaccines. 42 days after the virus’ genetic code was published, an experimental vaccine using mRNA technology was sent for the first clinical trials. It took 30 years and was an epidemic situation for mRNA research, led by Catalin Carrico, to be recognized as socially “beneficial.”
Acknowledgment:
At the time of the pandemic, governments have formed groups of scientists to advise them in decision-making. The exhibition “Knowledge to the World” revealed its various facets. Critical (subjective) thinking and confronting opinions raise many questions. However, “partial” knowledge about certain issues can be used to make the first decisions, which can be changed with the introduction of new information. Science has no immediate effects. There is a need for cumulative and continuous investment, so that over time it contributes to the economic and social progress of nations. Thanks to investing in mRNA since the 1990s, we can now manufacture the first vaccines in record time. Scientific knowledge rarely develops in an orderly fashion and we sometimes find new applications that we didn’t expect much. The bet on mRNA was originally thought by BioNTech to develop immunotherapy against cancer and not to produce vaccines. Once again, disruptive thinking and interdisciplinarity have been essential components to spur the progress of science and technology.
Another important aspect to consider is that validation of scientific knowledge (still) is done through peer-certified articles. BioNTech’s bet on publishing articles written in English has made access to information by other teams of scientists studying mRNA viable, adding more knowledge and helping to prove initial discoveries.
In 2005 Derek Rossi, an influential Harvard scientist and one of the founders of Modern, upon reading Carito’s (and his colleagues) original works realized his entrepreneurial spirit by declaring that he should be eligible for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
This was not the first time that an event of great importance to the survival of humanity had been mitigated using the knowledge developed by the so-called basic sciences. Louis Pasteur has spent most of his career using scientific knowledge in microbiology to solve public health problems, such as sterilization of clinical instruments, vaccines as a means of preventing disease, and fermentation used to pasteurize milk and wine, thus avoiding contamination by harmful bacteria.
Pasteur’s approach inspired the work of Donald Stokes, who defined a new dimension for American science and technology policy. The one-dimensional characterization of science policies, as described in the OECD’s “Frascati Handbook”, is, to say the least, reductive; Sometimes they are categorized as “essential”, when they focus on generating and recording knowledge through scholarly articles; or considered “applied”, when it generates patents or instant solutions, presumably of greater relevance to the economy and society. The future requires the development of broader strategies that Stokes called “needs-inspired knowledge” – the “Pasteur Quadrant”, in keeping with the aphorism: “the need to sharpen ingenuity”.
Through multidimensional and interdisciplinary thinking, ARDITI – the Regional Agency for the Development of Research, Technology and Innovation in Madeira, intends to implement solutions that stimulate development, in line with regional priorities, and without ignoring national and European policies, independently that these solutions come from “applied” knowledge or ” the basic”.
As history repeats itself, it remains to be seen how the next framework program for financing R&D and innovation for RAM will be configured: will we be able to define a strategy tailored to our isolated realities or will we be (again) pushed into the policies of European Unions imposed by continental agendas ?