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I myself always knew that what I was doing was important, but I was not expecting any awards, I was not working for awards, said Katalin Karikó, Vice President of BioNTech, in an interview with Kossuth Radio.
Katalin Karikó received the Public Media Man of the Year award for the first time. One of the vaccines against the Covid-19 disease caused by the coronavirus was developed based on the biochemical patent. The researcher said in the program that he was very happy with the recognition, but he was not working for the awards, the last time he received a scholarship from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was in 1980, in 1980.
As you said, you are also happy to be recognized by the public media because it will bring other researchers more attention and better recognition of your work and rank in society in the future, but it can also spark the interest of young people in their scientific careers.
At the suggestion that many refer to him as a Nobel laureate, he put it this way: he doesn’t think about it, he doesn’t expect anything. The greatest joy about the vaccine was also that it gave people hope that their lives would return to normal, he emphasized, adding that it was very good for him when at the University of Pennsylvania, they were applauded by doctors and nurses waiting to be vaccinated. “I think I cried myself,” recalls the researcher, who received her first vaccination on December 18.
As you said, you will get the second vaccine in early January, but according to statistics, even the first one provides 88 percent protection. “Even the injection site didn’t hurt,” she answered the question of whether she had experienced any side effects.
The researcher gets a lot of inquiries, as he said, trying to match everything. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also congratulated him. “We are happy to have achieved such results, and this way this great problem will be solved and the epidemic will end,” recalled Katalin Karikó, adding that the prime minister also asked his opinion on vaccines, how they work, how different the new vaccine is from the old ones.
For next year, the researcher wants it to be a virus-free year, that people can return to their families and reunite without fear, that they continue the Olympics, that they go to the theater and concerts. “And forget about everything: the virus, the vaccine, me too, I enjoy that life goes back to the old wheel,” said Katalin Karikó.
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