Featured Grantee

Quick Facts

  • Name: Marcelo Mario Samsa
  • Comes from: Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • Lives in: Dorado, Puerto Rico
  • In three words: Family, Friends and Good Food
  • Leisure time activities: I love the sea, at the beach with my little son and my wife, on shore waters with my kite and in deep blue oceans with a sailboat
  • Likes: Mate, BBQ (Asado) and red wine
  • Unsuspected talent: Drummer (Rock!)
  • Currently reading: Breaking Through: My life in science by Katalin Karikó

In a nutshell

  • My research matters because…
    It faces the most urgent human medical needs: from vaccines that prevent infectious diseases, to therapeutic vaccines that combat cancer, and to one of the ultimate goals which is fixing genes through gene therapy. All of these medicines can be made with mRNA technology.
  • One of the inspirations for my research has been…
    Nobel Prize winners Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó. I have been working on mRNA technology since 2012, and they made this technology possible thanks to scientific work that started 20 years before the COVID pandemic hit the world in 2019. Their fundamental research created a safe vaccine that saved more than 14 million lives.
  • The best thing about my job is… 
    That I don't consider it a job!

  • My career highlight so far has been…
    I do not think much about highlights. I see my career as a sailing journey. I have reached several dreamed ports, sometimes facing severe storms, and I still have a lot to discover. The true highlights are still ahead, and they keep the journey alive.

  • My advice to aspiring researchers is… 
    Listen to yourself about what you really want to do. Paths and luck are unpredictable, but if you are prepared for the opportunities and give the best of yourself, you will be ready when they come.

Interview:

It is fascinating how two influential factors often determine a scientific career: a schoolteacher and a movie. In my case, it was my high school chemistry teacher and the movie Awakenings. But even before that, my father gave me a very enriching environment by letting me spend time with him in his workshop, which was full of fascinating tools and old chemistry glassware at our family house. 

I am working on an mRNA technology called saRNA. This is a form of mRNA that has the ability to self-amplify, which is where the “sa” comes from. In particular, we are improving this technology by allowing the modification of its chemical structure. We also have collaborators applying our new technology to vaccines, such as influenza and HIV, and to therapeutics, including gene therapy with CRISPR-Cas9.

My PhD research focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms of Dengue virus replication. The Dengue genome is similar to the basic of the saRNA technology, and this connection led to an invitation to join Novartis Vaccines in Cambridge, MA, where I contributed to the development of saRNA technology for vaccines. Since then, I have continued to build my research around this technology.

I enjoy the process of turning ideas into hypotheses, designing the right experiments, and then analyzing the results to see where they lead. I also find it very rewarding to work with teams and to organize research strategies that keep us focused on reaching our objectives. 

There is often a long journey between the work done in a laboratory and a tangible difference in people’s lives. Usually, it is not the achievement of one lab alone but the combined efforts of a scientific community working on the same challenge. We all contribute, though only a few breakthroughs define the field. My hope is that our research will help make the next generation of mRNA technology possible, making it more efficient and widely applicable. If my lab can contribute even a small part to improving the condition of a single patient, that would truly be a highlight.

I enjoy simply letting life happen. As John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans."