Telephone Interview with Katalin Karikó, Winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023

Katalin Karikó: Hello?

Adam Smith: Hello, may I speak to Katalin Karikó?

Katalin Karikó: Speaking!

Adam Smith: Hello, this is Adam Smith calling from nobelprize.org.

Katalin Karikó: Oh. Yes, Adam! OK. Yes. 

Adam Smith: Many congratulations on the award of the Nobel Prize.

Katalin Karikó: Thank you, thank you very much.

Adam Smith: Where are you and how did you hear the news?

Katalin Karikó: I…I was sleeping, and actually my husband picked up the phone. I am at my home in a suburb of Philadelphia in Abington township. And I…I just…I was away in a conference in Cold Spring Harbor, and just Saturday returned. We celebrated 50 years of…of recombinant DNA technology. I met all of those people there, 80s, 90s that did the basic work, and I just came back.

Adam Smith: A lovely gathering. And on hearing the news – I mean you’re no stranger to awards of course, they’ve been coming so thick and fast recently – but what were your first thoughts on hearing this news?

Katalin Karikó: That somebody is just joking!

Adam Smith: How were you reassured?

Katalin Karikó: It was kind of very scientific and too much information was in it that, you know, somebody would just make it up. But you never know in these days.

Adam Smith: Now you know for sure!

Katalin Karikó: I’m not … when they know… I’m a hundred percent sure!

Adam Smith: Yes, maybe it’ll never sink in, who knows.

Katalin Karikó: Yes!

Adam Smith: Apart from…apart from the doubt and the reassurance, what does it mean to you?

Katalin Karikó: Adam, Adam, if you know about 10 years ago, I was here in October because I was kicked out, from Penn, was forced to retire. Then my husband supported me and said that, you know, when finally visited in Germany and found that maybe BioNTech is the right place, then, you know, he…he said that, you know, “Just try it, you know, I…I will make sure that you don’t regret that.” You know, that is…you know, looking back in my life, and he…he supported me that I would go, and for nine years, I commuted to BioNTech in Germany. I did all these experiments actually, with my own hands. I was 58 years old, I was still, you know, culturing plasmids, and doing, you know, feeding cells, so it is…it is very unlikely.

I have to say that my mother, she passed away in 2018, but my mother listened always to the announcement of, you know, who gets the Nobel Prize because she…she told me, “Oh, next… next week they…they…they will…they will announce, maybe you will get it.” You know I was laughing, I was not even a professor, no team, and…and I told my mom that “don’t…don’t…don’t listen”, and she said, “Yes, but you know, you work so hard.” And I told her that all scientists work very hard. And so… 

Adam Smith: How wonderful to have someone who believes in you to such an extent.

Katalin Karikó: Yes, they believed, and, you know, my daughter…of course, she watched me work hard, and she became, you know, two-times Olympic champion.

Adam Smith: Olympic champion in what?

Katalin Karikó: Rowing, and she is a five times world champion, and you know, I went to this, she was inducted in the Hall of Fame, she was rowing here and there, and I was always introduced like “She’s Susan’s mom.” I was Susan’s mom. And now that my daughter came several times to the awards ceremony with me, and she was introduced as “Kati’s daughter.”

Adam Smith: I must say, for me, it’s a great delight to be talking to Susan’s mom on this call! It’s lovely. But I…I suppose the message of all this is that persistence can pay off, in the end. It’s – Yeah. 

Katalin Karikó: Yes, to persevere, and I believe that the first 14 years of your life, your genes, your parents, your teachers, your friends – they shape you the person who you will be. And I also, you know, as a woman and a…a mother, you know, I try to tell fellow female scientists that you don’t have to choose between having a family, you can have it, you just don’t have to over, you know, assist your child, just…your child will watch you and they will do, because that’s what counts, you know, that…the example that you present.

When I was 16 years old, I read the book from Hans Selye. Hans Selye is a Canadian scientist, but he was Hungarian, so his book was translated to Hungarian. And his…his mantra was that you have to focus on things that you can change. Many young ones are giving up because they can see that some of their friends or, you know, colleagues…they are, you know, advancing, and it seems that they do less and somehow, you know, they get higher salary and promoted. I told that if you notice that, then you already took away your attention what you can change. Because you cannot change that. And… and I told that…also that…when I was terminated, I didn’t spend time feeling sorry for you and, you know, saying things [like] “Why me?” You have to [focus] all the energy you have to spend, to seek out, “What next? What I can do.”

Adam Smith: Indeed! Indeed! Let me just ask you very briefly about your working relationship with Drew Weissman. You strike me as very different characters.

Katalin Karikó: Yeah, he is, you know, like…I brag, I am, you know, more talkative. But when you would see us looking at the data, we cut each other’s words! What it means, you know, we just…we’re very ‘alive’. About the experiments, yes, it was…we were very similar. But yes, once Drew showed me that “You know, Kati, from A to B, you know, you zigzag, zigzag, zigzag, zigzag! And I am just like, straight.” But I told him that when I zigzag, I learn so much in zigzag!

Adam Smith: Indeed, zigzagging seems to have been very productive! It’s been so lovely to have this relaxed conversation, I am…I am afraid that it’s so early in the morning, but your day is just going to get busier and busier from this point on, good luck with it all, and thank you very much indeed. 

Katalin Karikó: Thank you very much.

Adam Smith: OK. Bye-bye. 

Katalin Karikó: Bye.

来源 | Nobelprize、英文巴士公众号制作｜绢生审核｜肖英 / 万顷

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