Going far enough, we should credit some anonymous Homo erectus for discovering fire... Not that I am completely joking, the tree of human knowledge is fascinating by its depth and goes deep into the pre-literate age.
That said, I wouldn't dismiss Karikó's and Weissman's discovery of replacement of uridine with pseudouridine as merely "writing a paper". It was a pretty crucial technological stepping stone that made mRNA treatment orders of magnitude less dangerous to humans. Same with their discovery of the way how to deliver mRNA into cells (using lipid nanoparticles).
That said, I wouldn't dismiss Karikó's and Weissman's discovery of replacement of uridine with pseudouridine as merely "writing a paper". It was a pretty crucial technological stepping stone that made mRNA treatment orders of magnitude less dangerous to humans. Same with their discovery of the way how to deliver mRNA into cells (using lipid nanoparticles).