The United Kingdom administered its first COVID-19 vaccine today, a little less than a year from the first recorded cases. Back then, the effectiveness of this kind of vaccine was an open question. These new shots use messenger RNA to give the immune system an “instruction sheet” for fighting off COVID-19. This mRNA technology has been around for about a decade, but hasn’t been used successfully in a vaccine before now. On today’s show, biotech investor and author Safi Bahcall walks us through something like 150 years of pharmaceutical history and how mRNA will change vaccine development. Oh, and we’ll ask him why that Pfizer vaccine has to be kept so dang cold.

Here’s everything we talked about today (if these links don’t work, check out our episode page at makemesmart.org):

“We had the vaccine the whole time” from New York Magazine

Bahcall’s interview about vaccine technology on “Marketplace Tech”

And his op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, “The Conference Call to Cure Covid-19.”

“A gamble pays off in ‘spectacular success’: How the leading coronavirus vaccines made it to the finish line” from The Washington Post

“Low Prices for Vaccines Can Come at a Great Cost” from The New York Times

“How much could Pfizer make from a COVID-19 vaccine?” from “Marketplace”

“Uber Is Giving Self-Driving Car Project to a Start-Up” from The New York Times

“Palantir Wins FDA Contract to Power Drug Review, Inspections” from Bloomberg

“Coronavirus vaccines may be less effective for Black and Asian recipients, MIT study suggests” from The Week

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