Dr. Lucky Tran Oct 2, 2023
Katalin Karikó was the daughter of a butcher. She wanted to be a scientist, although she had never met one. She immigrated to the US in her 20s, but for decades never found a permanent position, receiving little support from the scientific establishment. Now she’s a Nobel winner!
Show threadDr. Lucky Tran Oct 2, 2023

Katalin Karikó won a Nobel Prize for her work on the COVID mRNA vaccines. Yet just 10 years earlier, UPenn kicked her out of academia.

"They told me that they’d had a meeting and concluded that I was not of faculty quality. When I told them I was leaving, they laughed at me and said, ‘BioNTech doesn’t even have a website.'"

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/mrna-coronavirus-vaccine-pfizer-biontech

How mRNA went from a scientific backwater to a pandemic crusher

For decades, Katalin Karikó's work into mRNA therapeutics was overlooked by her colleagues. Now it's at the heart of the two leading coronavirus vaccines

WIRED UK
Show threadJon Het.
@luckytran , Imagine being one of the guys who got rid of her.... The shame they will have to live with for the rest of their lives. They fired a woman who saved millions of lives, and made billions of dollars.
Oct 3, 2023 at 8:08pmWeb