Discovery of messenger RNA in 1961

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, words that just a year ago would have been the preserve of scientists have entered everyday language. One example is PCR, used for diagnostic tests. Another term that was once unfamiliar and is now on everyone's lips is messenger RNA, the miraculous molecule that has led to vaccines being administered to the general population less than a year after the start of the pandemic – bearing in mind that it previously took around a decade to develop a vaccine for a new disease. What exactly is this messenger RNA? Who discovered it, and when?

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