….The abridged version is that when Malone was a graduate student in biology in the late 1980s at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, he injected genetic material—DNA and RNA—into the cells of mice in hopes of creating a new kind of vaccine. He was the first author on a 1989 paper demonstrating how RNA could be delivered into cells using lipids, which are basically tiny globules of fat, and a co-author on a 1990 Science paper showing that if you inject pure RNA or DNA into mouse muscle cells, it can lead to the transcription of new proteins. If the same approach worked for human cells, the latter paper said in its conclusion, this technology “may provide alternative approaches to vaccine development.”

These two studies do indeed represent seminal work in the field of gene transfer, according to Rein Verbeke, a postdoctoral fellow at Ghent University, in Belgium, and the lead author of a 2019 history of mRNA-vaccine development. (Indeed, Malone’s studies are the first two references in Verbeke’s paper, out of 224 in total.) Verbeke told me he believes that Malone and his co-authors “sparked for the first time the hope that mRNA could have potential as a new drug class,” though he also notes that “the achievement of the mRNA vaccines of today is the accomplishment of a lot of collaborative efforts.”

Malone says he deserves credit for more than just sparking hope. He dropped out of graduate school in 1988, just short of his Ph.D., and went to work at a pharmaceutical company called Vical. Now he claims that both the Salk Institute and Vical profited from his work and essentially prevented him from further pursuing his research. (A Salk Institute spokesperson said that nothing in the institute’s records substantiates Malone’s allegations. The biotech company into which Vical was merged, Brickell, did not respond to requests for comment.) To say that Malone remains bitter over this perceived mistreatment doesn’t do justice to his sense of aggrievement. He calls what happened to him “intellectual rape.”

One target of Malone’s ire, the biochemist Katalin Karikó, has been featured in multiple news stories as an mRNA-vaccine pioneer. CNN called her work “the basis of the Covid-19 vaccine” while a New York Times headline said she had “helped shield the world from the coronavirus.” None of those stories mentioned Malone. “I’ve been written out of the history,” he has said. “It’s all about Kati.” Karikó shared with me an email that Malone sent her in June, accusing her of feeding reporters bogus information and inflating her own accomplishments. “This is not going to end well,” Malone’s message says.

Karikó replied that she hadn’t told anyone that she is the inventor of mRNA vaccines and that “many many scientists” contributed to their success. “I have never claimed more than discovering a way to make RNA less inflammatory,” she wrote to him. She told me that Malone referred to himself in an email as her “mentor” and “coach,” though she says they’ve met in person only once, in 1997, when he invited her to give a talk. It’s Malone, according to Karikó, who has been overstating his accomplishments. There are “hundreds of scientists who contributed more to mRNA vaccines than he did.”

Malone insists that his warning to Karikó that “this is not going to end well” was not intended as a threat. Instead, he says, he was suggesting that her exaggerations would soon be exposed. Malone views Karikó as yet another scientist standing on his shoulders and collecting plaudits that should go to him. Others have been rewarded handsomely for their work on mRNA vaccines, he says. (Karikó is a senior vice president at BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer to create the first COVID-19 vaccine to be authorized for use last year.) Malone was once forced to declare bankruptcy, though he’s not exactly living on the streets: In addition to being a medical doctor, he has served as a vaccine consultant for pharmaceutical companies.

In any case, it’s clear enough that Malone isn’t singularly responsible for mRNA vaccines. The process of achieving major scientific advancements tends to be more cumulative and complex than the apple-to-the-head stories we usually tell, but this much can be said for sure: Malone was involved in groundbreaking work related to mRNA vaccines before it was cool or profitable; and he and others who believed in the potential of RNA-based vaccines in the 1980s turned out to be world-savingly correct……