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CNN praises this Hungarian doctor for the COVID-19 vaccine
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CNN says that Katalin Karikó was at first demoted, doubted, and rejected. However, she was steadfast enough, and now her work provides the basis for the Covid-19 vaccine.
According to cnn.com, a lot of countries started to receive the first packs of the new COVID-19 vaccines which the media outlet regards as a momentous breakthrough enabling the world to get rid of the deadly virus in the foreseeable future. “For Katalin Karikó, the moment is particularly special,” they say.
Karikó has been researching the therapeutic possibilities of mRNA during her career already ranging decades. That component of the DNA is considered to be one of the main building blocks of life. She had to overcome a lot of setbacks, job losses, doubt, and a transatlantic move, but now
her work is essential to making the vaccine against the coronavirus.
The 65-year-old researcher began her career in Hungary, in the 1970s, when mRNA research was new, and the possibilities seemed endless. In 1985, she and her family left the country accepting the invitation of the Temple University in Philadelphia. There, she had more researching and funding opportunities than in Hungary, so she could extend her work.
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“We had just moved into our new apartment, our daughter was two years old, everything was so good, we were happy,” Karikó told the Hungarian news site G7 about her family’s departure. “But we had to go.” They sold their car, Karikó told The Guardian, and
stuffed the money – an equivalent of about $1,200 – in their daughter’s teddy bear for safekeeping.
She worked at Temple and then at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine. She believed that with the help of mRNA, they could fight diseases, but such ideas were deemed too radical and financially too risky in the ’80s. She kept applying for grants, but everybody rejected her and her project.