A conversation with Nobel Prize winner Katalin Karikó on rejection, finally being recognized and her mRNA work

On Mon­day, re­searcher Katal­in Karikó won the No­bel Prize in Phys­i­ol­o­gy or Med­i­cine for her work on mR­NA. End­points News in­ter­viewed Karikó on Sept. 25, the week be­fore she won the No­bel.

While she be­came a sci­en­tif­ic hero dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, and in 2021 won the Lasker Award — of­ten con­sid­ered a pre­cur­sor to the No­bel — she was ig­nored for years and even­tu­al­ly shoved out of her po­si­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia. In our in­ter­view, she spoke about her ca­reer, life, hopes for the fu­ture of mR­NA, and how her moth­er used to lis­ten to the ra­dio every Oc­to­ber, hop­ing to hear her daugh­ter’s name among the an­nu­al No­bel Prize win­ners.

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