Breaking Through (from Winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine)

Katalin Karikó began life as a butcher’s daughter in post-war Communist Hungary: a hand-to-mouth existence in a single-room house of clay and straw with no running water. But even as a child she understood two crucial things: for those who can see it, the world is full of fascination and wonder, and whatever challenges she faced, she could overcome them with her boundless appetite for learning.

Breaking Through is Karikó’s extraordinary memoir of how she achieved her dream of becoming a scientist, first in Hungary and then in the USA, and pursued her belief – despite so many telling her not to – that an elusive molecule called mRNA could transform our ability to prevent disease. For three decades she worked in obscurity, battling cockroaches in a windowless lab, enduring demotion, the derision of her colleagues, even threats of deportation. But in 2020, Karikó’s vision was spectacularly vindicated when her work made possible a staggering achievement that changed all our lives: the production of the vaccines that protected millions from COVID-19, bringing an end to the pandemic and paving the way for similar vaccines against HIV, malaria and other life-threatening diseases.

As frank, wise and fearless as Karikó herself, Breaking Through is a remarkable story of tenacity, friendship and loyalty, and one woman’s unshakeable commitment to her values.