Even if you can’t tell your oligoribonucleotides from your polyribonucleotides, there’s big news in the field of mRNA, and good news for HelixNano, Yes VC’s portfolio company. They’ve just been granted a patent:

“One of the few things HelixNano is bad at is pausing to take in our wins, but a recent development made us pop the champagne: our foundational mRNA chemistry patent has been granted by the USPTO.

This isn’t just a major win for us, but a milestone for the entire mRNA field. You may be familiar with the groundbreaking work by Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, who were the first to show that it’s possible to hide mRNA from cells’ antiviral alarms. Their seminal discovery – the chemical modification m1Ψ – gave birth to the entire modern mRNA field and drove the efficacy of Moderna and BioNTech’s COVID vaccines.”