Upon reflection it's harsh of me to say Malone doesn't know his shit. That's not it exactly. It's more like bitterness over a perceived lack of credit and recognition made him lose his shit. He definitely was there in the early RNA days, and, like many, saw the therapeutic potential. Since you mentioned the Lasker I was thinking about that. If you Google Kariko and Malone you'll see there's a bit of a history there that almost certainly feeds into this. Malone thinks he was cheated, but now he's made his mark. I wonder how it feels though, when he's invited on these programs. He comes on "inventor of mRNA vaccines" say his piece, probably still tries to nuance it a bit. Then followed up by next person on the program saying that what he wanted his life work to be about, what he wants to be known for, is all a sham, a lie, or this, that or the other thing. Textbook pathos.
I personally think these big awards like Lasker, etc do more harm than good anymore. Like giving the Lasker to the mRNA nucleotide modification people to prevent triggering innate immunity `but not the the LNP people. Like you say, so many contributed, everything necessarily collaborative. So many different facets, all have to be in place. I remember Gary Ruvkun's Lasker talk for his miRNA work; perhaps when done like that it still works. He was basically, nothing really special about me per se, its the process and the underlying biology. So amazing. If it triggers for somebody, takes the next step, all that matters.
