evidence: Messenger RNA and viral vectors are the new platforms at work in the COVID-19 vaccines likely to be authorized for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the coming weeks. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are based on the messenger RNA, or mRNA, platform. Hungarian biochemist Katalin Karikó — now a senior executive with BioNTech, Pfizer’s partner on the COVID-19 vaccine — started developing mRNA therapies in 1990 while a professor at University of Pennsylvania Medical School. [...] In the COVID-19 vaccines, the mRNA platform delivers genetic information that tells cells to make spike protein, named for the spikes on the surface of the coronavirus. Production of this protein stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies to combat coronavirus, just as it would in the case of actual infection.