After Shunning Nobel-winning Scientist, University of Pennsylvania Celebrates Her Nobel Prize

[CousinIT]

School that once demoted Katalin Karikó and cut her pay has made millions of dollars from patenting her work

The University of Pennsylvania is basking in the glow of two researchers who this week were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for their pioneering work on messenger RNA.

Until recently, the school and its faculty largely disdained one of those scientists.

Penn demoted Katalin Karikó, shunting her to a lab on the outskirts of campus while cutting her pay. Karikó’s colleagues denigrated her mRNA research and some wouldn’t work with her, according to her and people at the school.

Eventually, Karikó persuaded another Penn researcher, Drew Weissman, to work with her on modifying mRNA for vaccines and drugs, though most others at the school remained skeptical, pushing other approaches.

Karikó hasn’t only proven her detractors wrong but also reached the pinnacle of science. Her research with Weissman helped lead to the mRNA vaccines that protected people worldwide during the Covid-19 pandemic and now shows promise for flu, cancer and other diseases.

Penn, which patented their mRNA technology, has made millions of dollars from drugmakers that licensed it. And on Monday, when Karikó and Weissman were awarded the Nobel, on top of prestigious science prizes in recent years, the school expressed a different perspective on their work.

https://archive.ph/hWXMz

[Stargazer99]

1. Typical crap done to women...women have just as many smarts as males except males

want to dominate and can't admit women are as capable as the male sex

[2naSalit]

3. +1

[walkingman]

2. Patriarchy is designed to primarily serve the needs of a relatively few elite men.

“What would the world look like if girls were taught they were volcanoes, whose eruptions were a thing of beauty, a power to behold, a force not to be trifled with?”~Mona Eltahawy

[lindysalsagal]

7. Yes: It's not broken: Patriarchy is working exactly as it's founders had hoped, in 1500BCE

Going strong. Be proud, you educated men. Don't let a silly woman, who has the power of childbirth ever show YOU up!

[Quakerfriend]

12. Sure patriarchy is alive and well. However,

having worked at Penn (Med school & in hospital) in the 90’s, I will just say that we women were treated as complete equals.

We were admired & revered as intellectual equals- and elevated along with the men.

I never once felt diminished by the men in any way!

And, these were some at the very top of their fields.

[spooky3]

4. An attorney I knew said "academia is the last bastion of sexism." Nt

[CousinIT]

5. Knowing those who work in higher ed...

...YEP.

[Irish_Dem]

6. Yep. Academia is definitely a bastion of the the good ole boys' club.

Women working on their PhD's know they have to learn how to speak male language
and work with male rules and norms, or they don't get their doctorate.

[Rebl2]

8. I believe that

[LiberalFighter]

9. Will they pay her backpay?

[Delmette2.0]

11. Excellent question.

[CousinIT]

13. She should sue the snot out of them. Not sure the legal grounds or if there is any

(not a lawyer) but this should be illegal. They shit on her when she developed this technology and now are profiting from it after derailing her career, demoting her, cutting her pay. Assholes.

[vlyons]

10. She could get a full professorship with an endowed chair at the university of her choice.

nt