Breaking Through: My Life in Science

Katalin Karikó's memoir recounts her unlikely path from postwar communist Hungary to becoming a Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine in 2023. The daughter of a butcher, she grew up in an adobe home without running water and was determined to become a scientist. She immigrated to the United States in 1985 as a postdoctoral fellow with $1,200 sewn into her toddler's teddy bear. Karikó spent decades researching messenger RNA, working in obscurity and facing derision from colleagues and institutions that conflated science with money. She believed mRNA could transform cells into factories capable of producing their own medicines. Despite setbacks and threats of deportation, she persisted in her vision. Her three-decade investigation culminated in the development of COVID-19 vaccines that protected millions of people. The medical community now anticipates additional mRNA vaccines for influenza, HIV, and other infectious diseases. Breaking Through documents her commitment to intensive work in obscurity, driven by the belief that her research would save lives, even as she risked never receiving recognition in a culture prioritizing prestige and power.