All Dollars, No Sense: How Penn Profits from Katalin Karikó’s Research on Covid-19 Vaccines

Rachel D. Goldstein, W’22

 

By the end of 2021, over 8.5 billion COVID-19 vaccinations had been administered worldwide. This podcast discusses the life story of Katalin Karikó—a former medical researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who helped to develop mRNA-based vaccines. As an immigrant female non-tenured faculty, Karikó faced personal and professional challenges at Penn. After a discussion of Karikó’s scientific pursuits, her perseverance through adversity, and her eventual success, this podcast concludes with voices of current Penn students about my proposal for a monument to Karikó on campus.

 

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