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1 of 1 copy available
“Katalin Karikó’s story is an inspiration.”—Bill Gates
“Riveting . . . a true story of a brilliant biochemist who never gave up or gave in.”—Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry
A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Katalin Karikó has had an unlikely journey. The daughter of a butcher in postwar communist Hungary, Karikó grew up in an adobe home that lacked running water, and her family grew their own vegetables. She saw the wonders of nature all around her and was determined to become a scientist. That determination eventually brought her to the United States, where she arrived as a postdoctoral fellow in 1985 with $1,200 sewn into her toddler’s teddy bear and a dream to remake medicine.
Karikó worked in obscurity, battled cockroaches in a windowless lab, and faced outright derision and even deportation threats from her bosses and colleagues. She balked as prestigious research institutions increasingly conflated science and money. Despite setbacks, she never wavered in her belief that an ephemeral and underappreciated molecule called messenger RNA could change the world. Karikó believed that someday mRNA would transform ordinary cells into tiny factories capable of producing their own medicines on demand. She sacrificed nearly everything for this dream, but the obstacles she faced only motivated her, and eventually she succeeded.
Karikó’s three-decade-long investigation into mRNA would lead to a staggering achievement: vaccines that protected millions of people from the most dire consequences of COVID-19. These vaccines are just the beginning of mRNA’s potential. Today, the medical community eagerly awaits more mRNA vaccines—for the flu, HIV, and other emerging infectious diseases.
Breaking Through isn’t just the story of an extraordinary woman. It’s an indictment of closed-minded thinking and a testament to one woman’s commitment to laboring intensely in obscurity—knowing she might never be recognized in a culture that is driven by prestige, power, and privilege—because she believed her work would save lives.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
October 10, 2023 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593786451
- File size: 318334 KB
- Duration: 11:03:11
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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August 21, 2023
Hungarian American biochemist Karikó, whose research was instrumental in the development of mRNA vaccines for Covid-19, details her life and career in this captivating debut memoir. While growing up in a one-room house in post-WWII Hungary, Karikó found deep communion with the outdoors—her family grew their own food, and she was fascinated by the teeming animal ecosystems just beyond her backyard. A middling student, she oriented herself toward science (“What I lacked in natural ability, I could make up for in effort”). In college, she received a fellowship to Hungary’s prestigious Biological Research Center; she felt like “a fish out of water amid powerful people” there, but her studies led her to become fascinated by the function of mRNA, a single-strand nucleic acid that instructs cells to build proteins. In the mid-1980s, she came to America as a postdoctoral fellow to continue her research on mRNA, fighting an uphill battle to be taken seriously (both as a woman and due to skepticism about mRNA’s importance) before her findings became crucial during 2020 vaccine development campaigns. Karikó describes her research with a palpable sense of wonder (“Every cell is like a sci-fi city that never sleeps”), successfully distilling complex scientific matters. The result is the rousing story of a remarkable woman and her lifesaving contributions to medicine. Agent: Mollie Glick, CAA.
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