RNA

It was during this work that he discovered an enzyme that enabled a virus made of RNA to be copied into DNA, a process known as reverse transcription.

Using messenger RNA as an intermediary in their actions, the vaccines instruct the body how to manufacture parts of a pathogen that its immune system can recognize and fight.

Prof Pollard says: "I don't think there's the evidence they are hugely better for protection, but where RNA tech is streets ahead of everything else is responding to outbreaks."

Importantly they also discovered all five nitrogenous bases — adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil — that are necessary to build DNA and RNA.

Amino acids, which make up proteins, or nucleotides, which make up DNA and RNA, are the same way.