Nobel Laureate
Professor, University of Szeged, Hungary
Adjunct Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Katalin Karikó is professor at University of Szeged, Hungary and adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. From 2013 to 2022 she was a senior vice president at BioNTech, Germany. Prior to BioNTech, she worked at the University of Pennsylvania for 24 years.
For decades, her research has been focusing on RNA-mediated mechanisms with the goal of developing in vitro-transcribed mRNA for therapy. She co-founded and served as CEO of RNARx. Her patents on modified nucleosides in mRNA were used to create the FDA-approved COVID-19 mRNA vaccines by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna. For her achievement Karikó received many honorary doctorate degrees and prestigious awards, including the Japan Prize,the Breakthrough Prize, the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award and the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.