The famous biochemist is Hungary's 15th Nobel Prize winner.Continue reading
Pope Francis has appointed Katalin Karikó, Nobel Prize-winning vice-president of the pharmaceutical company BioNTech, as a full member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, announced the Holy See’s press center.
The statement highlights that Katalin Karikó’s scientific research led to the development of the mRNA-based vaccine, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medical Sciences in 2023. The scientist has been awarded several prestigious national and international prizes for her work, and in 2020, she was awarded the Public Media’s Person of the Year Award for the first time.
The Vatican-based Pontifical Academy for Life was founded in 1994 by Pope John Paul II. It deals with bioethical issues, with a focus on the protection of life. It assists the Papal States in their relations with the international scientific community, universities, and research centers. It provides the Vatican with direct information on the latest technological and scientific advances.
Photo: Twitter/Pope Francis
The Academy is composed of up to seventy full members appointed by the Pope for a five-year term.
Appointments are recommended by the Governing Council on the basis of the candidates’ scientific titles and professional competence, and because of their “faithful service in defending and promoting the right to life of every human being,”
reads the Academy’s statutes.
The members, who come from all over the world, are not all Catholics, and include people of other faiths and even atheists. The Academy also has Hungarian corresponding members, Tamás Freund, professor of neurobiology and president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and László Kovács, professor of ethics and vice-rector of the University of Augsburg.
Via MTI, Featured image: Twitter/Semmelweis University