Katalin Karikó Quotes

7 Sourced Quotes

The idea was to give our cells, thanks to messenger RNA (mRna), the instructions to produce proteins capable of curing diseases. [...] with RNA he can make his cells produce that protein continuously for 2-3 days and everything is resolved.

Katalin Karikó
I thought of going somewhere else, or doing something else. I also thought maybe I'm not good enough, not smart enough. I tried to imagine: Everything is here, and I just have to do better experiments.

Katalin Karikó
For many decades, I never got anything. I was very happy with doing the work. Getting a letter from a New York elderly home where they celebrated that, with the vaccine, nobody died when they got the infection—for me, those are the real prizes.

Katalin Karikó
If the pandemic had happened 20 years ago, you would need to have, physically, in your hands, a piece of the virus. So that would be a big delay. But commercial gene synthesis started about 20 years ago. Now you can just order a gene.

Katalin Karikó
From 2018 we had worked with Pfizer to develop a vaccine for influenza. And we were already ready to start a clinical trial for that. But switching over to COVID, it was just a technical thing. And so it was already ready.

Katalin Karikó
If so many people who are in a certain field would come together in a room and forget their names, their egos, their titles, and just think, they would come up with so many solutions for so many things, but all these titles and whatever get in the way.

Katalin Karikó
When I went from academia to a company, they don't care how many committees you are on, how many papers you have. What counts is that you have a product that has an effect. The ego is wiped out. It is so much better.

Katalin Karikó