Katalin Karikó, author portrait
© Matthew Hamilton/Vilcek Foundation

Katalin Karikó

Katalin Karikó, PhD, is a Hungarian American biochemist who specializes in RNA-mediated mechanisms. She is an adjunct professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania, and her research was foundational in the development of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines.
Breaking Through

Books

Breaking Through

2025 Catalog for First-Year & Common Reading

We are delighted to present our new First-Year & Common Reading Catalog for 2025! From award-winning fiction, poetry, memoir, and biography to new books about science, technology, history, student success, the environment, public health, and current events, the titles presented in our common reading catalog will have students not only eagerly flipping through the pages,

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Videos from the 2024 First-Year Experience® Conference are now available

We’re pleased to share videos from the 2024 First-Year Experience® Conference. Whether you weren’t able to join us at the conference or would simply like to hear the talks again, please take a moment to view the clips below.   Penguin Random House Author Breakfast Monday, February 19th, 7:15 – 8:45 am PST This event

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Breaking Through Author Katalin Karikó Awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Long before the search for a COVID-19 vaccine, the visionary, Hungarian-born biochemist Katalin Karikó knew that an ephemeral and underappreciated molecule called messenger RNA could change the world. Karikó worked for more than three decades at her lab bench, in the single-minded pursuit of a breakthrough that would confirm her hunch: that mRNA could transform ordinary cells into tiny factories

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