Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman: The Vaccine Revolution

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Academy of Achievement

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4.6 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2022

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The COVID-19 vaccine came out at warp speed because of the work of these two scientists. For many years they had been investigating the secrets of messenger RNA (mRNA). And when the pandemic began, their research was ready and waiting. On this episode you’ll hear Katalin Karikó talk about her humble beginnings in Hungary, and the forces that enabled her to persevere, even though for decades people thought her ideas about mRNA were laughable. She was denied grants, lost jobs and wasn’t taken seriously, but she never wavered. Fortunately, she met Drew Weissman one day at a copy machine, where they both worked at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Weissman was an immunologist, working on a vaccine for HIV. He was interested in Karikó’s work and they began to collaborate. Even when they made major discoveries, they could not get support for their work… until the Corona Virus appeared. Now the scientific world sees the potential that Karikó and Weissman saw all along: that mRNA may open the door to many other vaccines and to therapeutic treatment for a host of illnesses, from Cancer to Sickle Cell Anemia to Heart Disease. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2022

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Alice.
0:02.0	In 1985, Catalan Carrie Coe lost her job at the research center in Hungary where she worked as a biochemist.
0:12.0	She and her husband decided their prospects would be better in the US. This was still in the
0:17.8	Soviet era. So they sold their car in the black market for $1,200 and boarded a plane with their two-year-old daughter
0:26.1	Susan and the cash from the car sewn into Susan's teddy bear.
0:32.2	Well, Susan grew up to become a two-time gold medal Olympic rower,
0:36.9	and her mom, Catalan Carrico,
0:39.8	became a tireless researcher whose decades of work on messenger RNA led directly to the COVID vaccine.
0:48.0	So many times I told my daughter that, oh this rowing is so similar what I am doing, because in rowing, they are going
0:58.0	backwards and not seeing where is the finish line.
1:02.7	And I told my daughter, this is, you know, I'm doing, doing,
1:06.2	I don't know.
1:07.0	I just hope that there is a finish line,
1:08.9	but at least, you know, you have the cocks in there
1:12.2	and you know that you are going to the right direction I don't even know that I'm going to the right
1:17.1	direction but I am just pulling so hard just like the rowers and also when like she got to gold medals when it was in the
1:27.8	women eight so there are you know eight women and and they are pulling and there is no star in a in a boat.
1:36.0	Everybody had to pull in the same very synchronized manner and so this is the same in
1:42.4	like working in the company that we all had to pull together and
1:49.0	Doing our best and there is no star there. Everybody is working very hard and doing their best, whatever is their specialty.
1:58.0	And we are, you know, in science really, we don't know how far the finish line.
2:07.0	We just hope that maybe we make it or maybe, you know,
	...

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