They forced her to resign on the pretext that her work was unimportant and did not merit promotion—only for that very same line of research, years later, to help save humanity from a devastating virus.

This is not the plot of a film; it is the true story of Katalin Karikó, co-recipient of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Her journey is one of the most inspiring scientific stories of our time and deserves to be taught in schools and universities, especially in an age saturated with trends and “fashionable” topics in every sphere—at work, in the streets, in classrooms, on campuses, and even within the research community itself.

Many of us now work under the pressure that our research must follow the latest trend, or else we risk losing funding or even our jobs. How many times have you considered changing your field, your project, or even your entire career simply to be “on trend”?

The very project others dismiss as outdated or irrelevant may one day become the lifeline of your institution—or even of humanity—just as her work did. To appreciate this fully, it is worth revisiting her story from the beginning.

From Humble Beginnings to Communist Oppression

Katalin Karikó was born in 1955 in a modest household in Hungary, in Eastern Europe. Her father was a simple man with a rebellious spirit who paid a heavy price under the communist regime. She grew up in a small home without running water, refrigerator, or television, yet despite these difficult conditions she excelled at school, particularly in science.

She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1978 and a PhD in biochemistry in 1982, both from the University of Szeged. But her academic success came at a personal cost. Fearful of reprisals because of her father’s history, she was registered—under pressure and blackmail—as an “informational source” for the communist secret police. She later stated that she never provided any real information and was never an active agent, but the episode illustrates the climate of fear in which she lived.

She married and had a child in Hungary, but by the age of thirty she decided to emigrate with her family to the United States in search of a freer environment for scientific research. It is said that she sold their family car on the black market and hid roughly £900 in cash inside her daughter’s teddy bear to smuggle it out of the country and circumvent strict financial controls.

The Destructive Power of Poor Supervision

Her first stop was Temple University in Philadelphia, where she worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Robert Suhadolnik—an example of how destructive poor supervision can be. When she received an offer from Johns Hopkins University for a faculty position, she accepted without informing him immediately.

In retaliation, he threatened that if she went to Johns Hopkins, he would have her deported. He reported her to the immigration authorities, falsely claiming she was in the country illegally. By the time she cleared her name, Johns Hopkins had already withdrawn the offer.

This betrayal could have ended her American scientific career before it truly began. But Karikó persevered, and in 1989 she joined the University of Pennsylvania to work with cardiologist Elliot Barnathan on messenger RNA (mRNA).

The Decade of Rejection

In 1990, as an assistant professor at the medical school, she submitted her first grant proposal, outlining a gene-therapy strategy based on mRNA. The scientific world, however, was not yet ready.

During the 1990s, enthusiasm for mRNA declined sharply. Many researchers and biotech companies considered it too unstable and too likely to provoke strong immune reactions to be clinically useful. As a result, funding agencies repeatedly rejected her proposals.

Demotion, Cancer, and Rock Bottom

Karikó was originally placed on the tenure track, a probationary path toward a permanent academic appointment that depends heavily on a researcher’s ability to secure external funding. Because her ideas fell outside the prevailing fashion and her grants were consistently turned down, the university decided in 1995 to demote her to the rank of adjunct professor, remove her from the tenure track, and cut her salary.

She worked in difficult conditions, moving between labs and enduring colleagues’ whispers, as many regarded her story as a cautionary tale of failure. As an Eastern European immigrant, she also confronted bias and isolation, along with the constant fear of immigration problems.

That same year, she was diagnosed with cancer. The personal and professional pressures were immense.

The Chance Encounter That Changed Everything

Yet at such moments, God often places someone in our path who rekindles hope. For Karikó, that person was immunologist Drew Weissman, whom she met by chance in 1997 at the photocopier in the university.

That encounter changed everything. The two began to collaborate, and within a few years they achieved a breakthrough. In 2005 they published a landmark paper in the journal Immunity describing their discovery: by chemically modifying one of the mRNA building blocks—replacing uridine with pseudouridine—they could prevent the immune system from overreacting to the synthetic mRNA.

This seemingly small modification allowed mRNA to evade immune detection, remain longer in cells, and produce the desired proteins without triggering dangerous inflammation. This insight became the core of later mRNA vaccine technology.

Even Breakthrough Work Gets Rejected

Despite the importance of their findings, top journals such as Nature and Science initially rejected the work, still skeptical about mRNA’s potential. Only Immunity accepted the paper.

After years of stagnation at the University of Pennsylvania, and realizing that her career would not advance there, Karikó decided in 2013 to leave academia and joined the biotech company BioNTech in Germany.

Vindication: When the World Finally Understood

When the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in 2019, the very technology she had spent decades refining provided the basis for rapid and effective mRNA vaccines developed by companies such as BioNTech, Pfizer, and Moderna.

These vaccines helped save millions of lives and proved the immense power and practicality of mRNA technology. The work that was dismissed as outdated, unfashionable, and unworthy of funding became humanity’s lifeline in its darkest hour.

Today, Katalin Karikó holds more than 130 scientific awards and has become a global symbol of women’s contributions to science—and of perseverance in the face of institutional rejection.

The Lessons for All of Us

Her story may remind you of times when you worked somewhere without receiving the appreciation you deserved, when your efforts were taken for granted or dismissed as unimportant. This is not an exception; it is often a central part of the journey of anyone who tries to think differently or work outside the conventional mold.

The real difference lies in how you respond. Do you surrender to frustration and give up, or do you continue, perhaps seeking a place that understands the value of your work?

Think about your own situation right now. Are you facing pressure to abandon your convictions and follow the latest trend? Are colleagues or supervisors dismissing your ideas as impractical or outdated? Are you being told your work “doesn’t matter”?

Before you give up, remember Katalin Karikó. Remember that she was:

• Demoted and told her work was unimportant
• Removed from the tenure track
• Had her salary cut
• Faced rejection from every major journal
• Watched as the entire scientific community abandoned her field
• Struggled with cancer while dealing with professional humiliation
• Was forced to leave academia after decades of service

And yet, she never stopped believing in her work. She never stopped pushing forward. And when humanity needed her most, her “outdated” research became the foundation for saving millions of lives.