When I was at the high school, according to the paperwork there, at 16, I already announced I will be a biologist. I don't remember that, but it was written there, and then two biology teacher was assigned to help me, to assist. There was an excellent biology teacher, and he believed that I can be a researcher, which I had no idea, but then I started to believe myself. It is very important that you have somebody who encouraging you, the teacher is doing that. I decided that because my sister went to the University, to Budapest, I decided that I would also go there, and together we will be students.

When I learned that the Biological Research Center open in Szeged, Hungary, and Szeged is a big city. I said I have to go there to the University so I can get a job on that research center, which, actually, again, next week will be celebrating the 50th anniversary. I decided that I would go to study biology, and I will work, that was my dream, work in the Biological Research Center, Szeged.

Dr. Katalin Kariko is a biochemist and adjunct professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania. She won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her work in developing mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. She completed her schooling at the University of Szeged and carried out her post-doctoral work at the Institute of Biochemistry, Biological Research Centre of Hungary.

Dr. Kariko received her Bachelor of Sciences in Biology in 1978 and her PhD in Biochemistry in 1982 from the University of Szeged. She completed her post-doctoral work at the Institute of Biochemistry, Biological Research Centre of Hungary until 1985, when her lab at the Biological Research Centre lost funding. She then moved to the United States and carried out post-doctoral work at Temple University from 1981 to 1988 and at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences from 1988 to 1989. She then joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in the Perelman School of Medicine’s neurosurgery department in 1989.

At the University of Pennsylvania, she began to collaborate with immunologist Drew Weissman, where the two experimented with modifying mRNA. In the early 2000’s, Kariko and Weissman discovered that swapping uridine with pseudouridine in mRNA created a molecule with favorable attributes such as reduced adverse reactions. This breakthrough led the way for many other modified mRNA molecules to be potentially used in a multitude of future medical applications, including developing effective mRNA vaccines against the COVID-19 virus during the height of the pandemic in 2020. For their development of mRNA biotechnology, Dr. Kariko and Dr. Weissman were awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Outside of the Nobel Prize, Dr. Kariko has received numerous awards for her contributions to science including the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award in 2021, the Novo Nordisk Prize in 2022, being inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2023, the Harvey Prize in Human Health in 2024, and elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2025.