Dr. Katalin Karikó, the recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, responds personally to emails she receives from ordinary people asking her about her research, one of the conspiracists' favorite topics: the development of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.
“The distance between what the average person knows about the vaccine and what the science is? The gap is huge,” the researcher said in a 2021 interview with Glamour. “Scientists have to learn: you are also translators.” in an interview for Glamour in 2021. "Scientists must understand: you are also translators."
“Scientists have to learn: you are also translators.”
Katalin Karikó, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine
Karikó spent decades studying the possibilities of messenger RNA (mRNA), despite the continuous rejection of her funding requests and lack of interest in her research. She and her collaborator, Dr. Drew Weissman, were "evangelists" for the potential of mRNA, but "their work attracted few converts. Those who knew about it tended to be dismissive: fanciful, nice concept, dead end.”
Also from the Glamour interview I took away something important: as a woman and as an immigrant (she is originally from Hungary) she has always had to navigate the various tasks that don't offer the potential for academic growth. Tasks that need to be done, but don't "score". Science communication is often seen as one of these reward-less activities: it "gives" very well, but doesn't carry weight on the academic CV. Mentoring, too. I wonder how many women in Romania also have this unseen experience of carrying on reward-free activities?
I really liked the words she said when she had to leave the University in 2013: "This lab will be a museum in the future. Don't touch it."
Photo credit: Rockefeller University
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