From New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is Adelaide.

Today, as vaccines against COVID-19 bring the worst of a pandemic to an end for millions of people.

My colleague, Gina Calotta, tells the improbable story of a scientist who played a crucial role in creating those vaccines.

And the decades of doubt, disinterest, and dismissal she had to overcome to do so.

It's Thursday, June 10th.

Gina, tell me about this scientist that you have been reporting on.

Lena, she is one of the rare people who not only had a really interesting, great idea which sounded out of the realm of possibility, but never gave up.

My name is Kotelin Koriko. I am a biochemist.

Her name is Kotelin Koriko, but she goes by Katie.

And once I started to talk to her, I wanted to hear more and more and more.

Now, could you start by telling me where you grew up?

I grew up in a small Hungarian town called Tishu Salash. There are 10,000 people lives there.

She grew up in a little town in Hungary, in communist Hungary.

I grew up in a very simple household. We had an Adobe house with redroof.

We didn't have running waters. We didn't have refrigerator or television.

But I didn't know that we don't have this because none of our neighbors had one.

So everybody was the same. And her father was a butcher and her mother was a bookkeeper.

But she was always interested in science.

What made you think about science? Did you have a teacher?

Was there anything in particular that made you think of science?

When I was a child, my father was a butcher and I was always seeing how he cut up the pig.

And I was watching, meanwhile, my sister, older sister, running the house.

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