Katalin Karikó, the Hungarian biochemist who was fundamental in the creation of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine, is currently in Hungary until May 27. While her schedule and work responsibilities have kept her very busy, since she has arrived she has spoken at the Hungarian Academy of Science (MTA), given interviews to Hungarian media, and met with the rector of Semmelweis University, Béla Merkely.
At her speech for the 194th conference of the Hungarian Academy of Science (MTA), Katalin Karikó spoke about her career path, which started at the University of Szeged, and gave details on the scientific know-how of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology. It was Karikó’s decades of hard work which led to this technology becoming the foundation for Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine.