What I most remember from about 1996 with Elliot, when I first realized that we put the RNA to the cell and had to make this urokinase receptor highly glycosylated water protein, and it was made a functional protein. We were there in the gamma counter and we could see, and it was before Christmas and oh my God, the RNA went there and the cell made this functional protein. That I remember very clearly. The other thing is that now, in 1997, Elliot left and then I was in neurosurgery.

How I get there? Actually, that in Elliot's laboratory I met David Langer, a medical student, usually they very smart and he went on my nerve on many things. What happened is one day he just come that he said that he will learn everything what I know. I said, "By that time I will know so much by the time you learn what I know now." I was just teasing him. When he learned that Elliot is leaving and what happened to me, he was a neurosurgery resident. He went to the chairman and he said, "Neurosurgery needs a molecular biologist," and asked the chairman to give salary and lab.

That's how I get for 17 years, thanks to David Langer, a student, who today is the chairman in neurosurgery in the Lenox Hill. He's in the Netflix series of Lenox Hill and also, later, the New York Emergency Room– this series is going on in Netflix. So, he's there, you can watch him. That David Langer helped me to get this laboratory and thanks to Elliot and David Langer, I could survive and move on with the messenger RNA program. He did a very great messenger RNA, David, and went to one neurosurgery meeting in '97 and presented in neurosurgery meeting about messenger RNA that it would be the future.

That's how I get to this neurosurgery. They didn’t have there– this was very remotely located, they didn't have there Xerox machine and I still went back to department of medicine, where cardiology belongs, and went back there to use the Xerox machine because I know the code. There was this guy I have never seen before. He was using the machine and I ask him, "Why," and he was using Xeroxing papers, it was '97. So, I ask him who he is and he said, he's coming from NIH and he starts here, and he want to make a HIV vaccine, and he came from Fauci's lab. Fauci didn't ring any bell, it was '97, I was not on the field, I didn't know who is Anthony Fauci. I like to brag, so I said, "I'm working with mRNA, messenger RNA." At that point, I was 10 years about I was working. He said, "Oh, that's interesting. I work with human dendritic cells." That point, I didn't know what human dendritic cell. Dendrite, maybe it's some neuron. I didn't hear.

We started to educate each other. Then we had a meeting. He sent me literature, gave me, and we start to talk and I made mRNA for HIV program. We published in 2000 that this is a very great vaccine because it codes for the protein and it activates all of these things. All of these inflammatory molecules were there also, TNF-alpha. Oh, I wanted to make therapeutic protein-coding RNA. Then I was shocked that 10 years, all of my work with Elliot and all that, it was just for nothing because it is this inflammatory. I did not notice in mice and rats and whatever experiment we did, I did not notice that the RNA was inflammatory. In the human dendritic cells, it was.

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.