Three weeks ago, Penn hosted a flash mob for Katalin Karikó after she won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine. But the celebration masked a tumultuous, decades-long relationship between Karikó and the University.
Karikó, an adjunct professor of neurosurgery at the Perelman School of Medicine, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her past research into mRNA technology alongside co-laureate and Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research at the Medical School Drew Weissman. Karikó and Weissman’s research was critical for the development of the COVID-19 vaccines — from which Penn has earned around $1.2 billion.
“At a University built around [a] Franklin spirit, there are no better exemplars of these character traits than our Nobel laureates, Dr. Kati Karikó and Dr. Drew Weissman,” Penn President Liz Magill said at a press conference the day the prize was named.
However, eight current and former colleagues of Karikó told The Daily Pennsylvanian that — over the course of three decades — the University repeatedly shunned Karikó and her research, despite its groundbreaking potential.
The colleagues told a story of a researcher whose work ethic helped her succeed against all odds — including doubtful administrators, language barriers, and a system that cuts costs by demoting researchers who fail to earn grant funding.
“We acknowledge and are grateful for the valuable contributions Dr. Karikó has made to science and to Penn throughout her time with the University,” a University spokesperson wrote in a statement to the DP.
In 1989, four years after she arrived in the United States, Karikó was appointed an adjunct professor at the Medical School. She worked on mRNA research under cardiologist Elliot Barnathan until his departure in 1997.
From the very beginning of her time at Penn, Karikó’s research was overlooked by medical school executives, she wrote in her recently published memoir, “Breaking Through: My Life in Science.” These executives included Jim Wilson, the director of Penn’s embattled Gene Therapy Program, and Judith Swain, chief of cardiovascular medicine. Wilson remains a member of Penn’s faculty.
Wilson did not respond to a request for comment.
“[Jim] Wilson never seemed interested in mRNA or my research,” Karikó wrote. “He barely glanced my way; on the rare occasions he did, it always felt as if he were looking right through me.”
After Karikó unsuccessfully appealed to Wilson for her research to be included in an upcoming grant, Swain requested that Karikó not attend similar meetings in the future — and asked Karikó to stop speaking to her Hungarian colleague in their native language.
“She told me ‘people’ were complaining about me, saying that I was too difficult,” Karikó wrote of a time she was called to Swain’s office.
During these early years, Karikó wrote that Penn prevented her from having access to basic lab supplies, such as deionized water. All of her grant applications for future
