Katalin Kariko, PhD

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Katalin Kariko, PhD

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Adjunct Professor of Neurosurgery
Dr. Kariko is a Penn Medicine physician.

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Meet Dr. Kariko

Katalin Karikó, PhD, is a biochemist and researcher, best known for her contributions to mRNA technology and the COVID-19 vaccines. Karikó and Drew Weissman, MD, PhD, were jointly awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discoveries that enabled the modified mRNA technology used in Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s vaccines to prevent COVID-19 infection.

More than 15 years ago at Penn Medicine, Karikó and Weissman found a way to modify mRNA and later developed a delivery technique to package the mRNA in lipid nanoparticles. This made it possible for mRNA to reach the proper part of the body and trigger an immune response to fight disease.

These laboratory breakthroughs made mRNA safe, effective, and practical for use as a vaccine against COVID. The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine received FDA approval in August 2021, and the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine has been authorized by the FDA for emergency use.

Karikó is a senior vice president at BioNTech and an adjunct professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania. She joined the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1989 and began collaborating with Weissman in 1997.

Karikó received her bachelor's degree in biology in 1978 and her doctorate in biochemistry in 1982 from the University of Szeged in her native Hungary. She was working at the Biological Research Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Szeged before immigrating to the United States in 1985.

Description of Research Expertise

Dr. Katalin Karikó’s research has for decades focused on RNA-mediated mechanisms, with the ultimate goal of developing in vitro-transcribed mRNA for protein therapy. She investigated RNA-mediated immune activation and co-discovered (with Penn Medicine colleague Drew Weissman) that nucleoside modifications suppress the immunogenicity of RNA, which has widened the therapeutic potential of mRNA in treating diseases. This led to the development of the two most effective vaccines for COVID-19, the BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and holds vast promise for future treatments of many other diseases. Dr. Karikó was recently honored with the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Princess of Asturias Award, and the Vilcek Prize for Excellence in Biotechnology. She continues to work on new therapeutic applications of mRNA therapy.

Selected Publications

Krienke, C, Kolb, L, Diken, E, Streuber, M, Kirchhoff, S, Bukur, T, Akilli-Öztürk, Ö, Kranz, LM, Berger, H, Petschenka, J, Diken, M, Kreiter, S, Yogev, N, Waisman, A, Karikó, K, Türeci, Ö, and Sahin, U: A noninflammatory mRNA vaccine for treatment of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis Science 371 (6525): 145-153,2021.

Hotz, C, Wagenaar, TR, Gieseke, F, Bangari, DS, Callahan, M, Cao, H, Diekmann, J, Diken, M, Grunwitz, C, Hebert, A, Hsu, K, Bernardo, M, Karikó, K, Kreiter, S, Kuhn, AN, Levit, M, Malkova, N, Masciari, S, Pollard, J, Qu, H, Ryan, S, Selmi, A, Schlereth, J, Singh, K, Sun, F, Tillmann, B, Tolstykh, T, Weber, W, Wicke, L, Witzel, S, Yu, Q, Zhang, YA, Zheng, G, Lager, J, Nabel, GJ, Sahin, U, and Wiederschain, D: Local delivery of mRNA-encoding cytokines promotes antitumor immunity and tumor eradication across multiple preclinical tumor models Science Translational Medicine 13 (610): eabc7804,2021.

Sahin, U, Muik, A, Derhovanessian, E, Vogler, I, Kranz, LM, Vormehr, M, Baum, A, Pascal, K, Quandt, J, Maurus, D, Brachtendorf, S, Lorks, V, Sikorski, J, Hilker, R, Becker, D, Eller, AK, Grutzner, J, Boesler, C, Rosenbaum, C, Kuhnle, MC, Luxemburger, U, Kemmer-Bruck, A, Langer, D, Bexon, M, Bolte, S, Karikó, K, Palanche, T, Fischer, B, Schultz, A, Shi, PY, Fontes-Garfias, C, Perez, JL, Swanson, KA, Loschko, J, Scully, IL, Cutler, M, Kalina, W, Kyratsous, CA, Cooper, D, Dormitzer, PR, Jansen, KU, and Tureci, O.: COVID-19 vaccine BNT162b1 elicits human antibody and TH1 T cell responses Nature 586 (7830): 594-599,2020.

Karikó, K., Muramatsu, H., Welsh, FA., Ludwig, J., Kato, H., Akira, S., Weissman, D.: Incorporation of pseudouridine into mRNA yields superior nonimmunogenic vector with increased translational capacity and biological stability Molecular Therapy 16 : 1833-1840,2008.

Karikó K, Buckstein M, Ni H, Weissman D.: Suppression of RNA recognition by Toll-like receptors: the impact of nucleoside modification and the evolutionary origin of RNA Immunity 23 (2): 165-75,2005.

Academic Contact Information

BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals
An der Goldgrube 12
Mainz, D-55131