“To Grady, $35,000 spent on Karikó was “$35,000 that could be spent supporting a new scientist who may make a discovery,” Langer added.”
Penn has earned around $1.2 billion from the mRNA work behind the COVID-19 vaccines. It demoted Karikó, denied her a return to the faculty in 2010 as “not of faculty quality” and packed up her lab while she was away. She left for BioNTech in 2013. Then the president held a press conference calling her an exemplar of the Franklin spirit.