image: A photograph of biochemist Katalin Karikó, recipient of the 2022 Vilcek Prize for Excellence in Biotechnology. view more
Credit: Photograph courtesy of the Vilcek Foundation
The Vilcek Foundation recognizes and celebrates the career research contributions of Katalin Karikó in a new article and video campaign honoring the Hungarian biochemist’s research leadership in the development of mRNA therapeutics. Karikó is the recipient of the 2022 Vilcek Prize for Excellence in Biotechnology.
The Vilcek Prize for Excellence is awarded in recognition of immigrant professionals whose work has had a profound impact on culture and society, and to individuals who are champions of immigrant causes in the United States. Karikó receives the 2022 award for her decades of research that led to the development of safe and effective mRNA vaccines—including those now being deployed globally in the fight against COVID-19.
The mission of the Vilcek Foundation is to recognize and celebrate the contributions of immigrants to the sciences, culture, and society in the United States. Recipients of the Vilcek Prize for Excellence receive a commemorative diploma and an unrestricted cash award of $100,000.
The Vilcek Foundation’s profile and video, Katalin Kariko: The sacrifices and successes of immigrant scientists, center on Karikó’s passion for research science, and her humility about her own research accomplishments. “For me the success is not to be in the spotlight,” says Karikó, smiling. “The success is every day, when you are working in the laboratory and you are solving a problem.”
Born in Szolnok, Hungary, Karikó grew up fascinated by the natural world. At the age of 14, she was presenting at national science competitions, and she declared her desire to be a scientist at the age of 16.
Karikó’s fascination with mRNA and the potential for mRNA therapeutics began when she was a doctoral student at the University of Szeged. In 1978, Karikó worked with a research team at the Biological Research Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, preparing liposomes to deliver plasmid DNA into cells.
Following on this early research, Karikó continued her work investigating the potential to develop messenger RNA for therapeutic purposes. In 1985, when funding ran out for her work in Hungary, she applied for positions broadly, landing a research position at Temple University, prompting Karikó and her family to immigrate to the United States. Following her work at Temple, Karikó would go on to complete more than a decade of research on mRNA therapeutic applications at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2013, Karikó began working with biopharmaceutical company BioNTech, who sought her out for her research leadership in the stabilization of mRNA for therapeutic purposes. A senior vice president at BioNTech, Karikó worked with the company on the development of mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 in January 2020, when Chinese researchers sequenced the COVID-19 genome and shared this data with scientists around the world.
In addition to the Vilcek Prize for Excellence, Karikó has earned numerous awards over the past two years for her work. For all these accolades, she hopes to use the platform of her fame to highlight the importance of science education and research funding, and to inspire the next generation of research scientists not to be dissuaded from pursuing topics they are passionate about.
“In science, you are often working without any certainty of getting results,” says Karikó. “I think passion, single-minded focus, and a sense of mission are the key ingredients for fulfillment in a research career.”
Read more and watch the Vilcek Foundation’s video profile on Karikó at the following link: Katalin Karikó: The sacrifices and successes of immigrant scientists.
The Vilcek Foundation
The Vilcek Foundation raises awareness of immigrant contributions in the United States and fosters appreciation of the arts and sciences. The foundation was established in 2000 by Jan and Marica Vilcek, immigrants from the former Czechoslovakia. The mission of the foundation—to honor immigrant contributions to the United States, and more broadly to foster appreciation of the arts and sciences—was inspired by the couple’s respective careers in biomedical science and art history. Since 2000, the foundation has awarded over $6.4 million in prizes to foreign-born individuals and supported organizations with over $5.6 million in grants.
The Vilcek Foundation is a private operating foundation, a federally tax-exempt nonprofit organization under IRS Section 501(c)(3).