Author: Katalin Karikó
Publisher: Radboud University Press
ISBN: 9493296008
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 34
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Book Description
On 20 October 2022, the day that Radboud University celebrated its 99th anniversary, Dr. Katalin Karikó received a Radboud honorary doctorate in recognition of her scientific contributions to developing mRNA-based vaccines. This edition includes the laudatio of the honorary supervisor and the speech of the honorary doctor. Karikó spent years researching medical applications of mRNA. Her dream was to develop synthetic mRNA and use this to cure cancer, strokes, and influenza. Eventually, after years of toil, rejection, and criticism from colleagues, she and fellow researcher Drew Weissman demonstrated that it is possible to trigger an immune response in the body with mRNA without the body turning against the mRNA itself. With this breakthrough, a new revolutionary technique was born. Thanks to Karikó’s scientific work, BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna were able to develop the current mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. A prime example of the beneficial impact that fundamental research can eventually have on society.
Author: Katalin Karikó
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0593443187
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 345
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Book Description
A powerful memoir from Katalin Karikó, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, whose decades-long research led to the COVID-19 vaccines “Katalin Karikó’s story is an inspiration.”—Bill Gates “Riveting . . . a true story of a brilliant biochemist who never gave up or gave in.”—Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Katalin Karikó has had an unlikely journey. The daughter of a butcher in postwar communist Hungary, Karikó grew up in an adobe home that lacked running water, and her family grew their own vegetables. She saw the wonders of nature all around her and was determined to become a scientist. That determination eventually brought her to the United States, where she arrived as a postdoctoral fellow in 1985 with $1,200 sewn into her toddler’s teddy bear and a dream to remake medicine. Karikó worked in obscurity, battled cockroaches in a windowless lab, and faced outright derision and even deportation threats from her bosses and colleagues. She balked as prestigious research institutions increasingly conflated science and money. Despite setbacks, she never wavered in her belief that an ephemeral and underappreciated molecule called messenger RNA could change the world. Karikó believed that someday mRNA would transform ordinary cells into tiny factories capable of producing their own medicines on demand. She sacrificed nearly everything for this dream, but the obstacles she faced only motivated her, and eventually she succeeded. Karikó’s three-decade-long investigation into mRNA would lead to a staggering achievement: vaccines that protected millions of people from the most dire consequences of COVID-19. These vaccines are just the beginning of mRNA’s potential. Today, the medical community eagerly awaits more mRNA vaccines—for the flu, HIV, and other emerging infectious diseases. Breaking Through isn’t just the story of an extraordinary woman. It’s an indictment of closed-minded thinking and a testament to one woman’s commitment to laboring intensely in obscurity—knowing she might never be recognized in a culture that is driven by prestige, power, and privilege—because she believed her work would save lives.
Author: Peter Loftus
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 164782320X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 299
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Book Description
The inside story of an unprecedented feat of science and business. At the start of 2020, Moderna was a biotech unicorn with dim prospects. Yes, there was the promise of its disruptive innovation that could transform medicine by using something called messenger RNA, one of the body's building blocks of life, to combat disease. But its stock was under water. There were reports of a toxic work culture. And despite ten years of work, the company was still years away from delivering its first product. Investors were getting antsy, or worse, skeptical. Then the pandemic hit, and Moderna, at first reluctantly, became a central player in a global drama—a David to Big Pharma's Goliaths—turning its technology toward breaking the global grip of the terrible disease. By year's end, with the virus raging, Moderna delivered one of the world's first Covid-19 vaccines, with a stunningly high rate of protection. The achievement gave the world a way out of a crippling pandemic while validating Moderna's technology, transforming the company into a global industry power. Biotech, and the venture capital community that fuels it, will never be the same. Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Loftus, veteran reporter covering the pharmaceutical and biotech industries and part of a Pulitzer Prize–finalist team, brings the inside story of Moderna, from its humble start at a casual lunch through its heady startup days, into the heart of the pandemic and beyond. With deep access to all of the major players, Loftus weaves a tale of science and business that brings to life Moderna's monumental feat of creating a vaccine that beat back a deadly virus and changed the business of medicine forever. The Messenger spans a decade and is full of heroic efforts by ordinary people, lucky breaks, and life-and-death decisions. It's the story of a revolutionary idea, the evolution of a cutting-edge American industry, and one of the great achievements of this century.
Author: William C. Summers
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300174250
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
A self-taught scientist determined to bring science out of the laboratory and into the practical arena, French-Canadian Felix d’Herelle (1873-1949) made history in two different fields of biology. Not only was he first to demonstrate the use and application of bacteria for biological control of insect pests, he also became a seminal figure in the history of molecular biology. This engaging book is the first full biography of d’Herelle, a complex figure who emulated Louis Pasteur and influenced the course of twentieth-century biology, yet remained a controversial outsider to the scientific community. Drawing on family papers, archival sources, interviews, and d’Herelle’s published and unpublished writings, Dr. William C. Summers tells the fascinating story of the scientist’s life and the work that took him around the globe. In 1917, d’Herelle published the first paper describing the phenomenon of the bacteriophage and its biological nature. A series of more than 110 articles and 6 major books followed, in which d’Herelle established the foundation for the later work of the Phage Group in molecular biology. Yet d’Herelle sometimes inspired animosity in others--he was drummed out of the Pasteur Institute, he held only one brief permanent position in the scientific establishment (at Yale University from 1928 to 1933), and he was bewildered by the social nuances of the world of international science. His story is more than the biography of a single brilliant scientist; it is also a fascinating chapter in the history of biology.
Author: Mary Schmidt Campbell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199723648
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 486
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Book Description
By the time of his death in 1988, Romare Bearden was most widely celebrated for his large-scale public murals and collages, which were reproduced in such places as Time and Esquire to symbolize and evoke the black experience in America. As Mary Schmidt Campbell shows us in this definitive, defining, and immersive biography, the relationship between art and race was central to his life and work -- a constant, driving creative tension. Bearden started as a cartoonist during his college years, but in the later 1930s turned to painting and became part of a community of artists supported by the WPA. As his reputation grew he perfected his skills, studying the European masters and analyzing and breaking down their techniques, finding new ways of applying them to the America he knew, one in which the struggle for civil rights became all-absorbing. By the time of the March on Washington in 1963, he had begun to experiment with the Projections, as he called his major collages, in which he tried to capture the full spectrum of the black experience, from the grind of daily life to broader visions and aspirations. Campbell's book offers a full and vibrant account of Bearden's life -- his years in Harlem (his studio was above the Apollo theater), to his travels and commissions, along with illuminating analysis of his work and artistic career. Campbell, who met Bearden in the 1970s, was among the first to compile a catalogue of his works. An American Odyssey goes far beyond that, offering a living portrait of an artist and the impact he made upon the world he sought both to recreate and celebrate.
Author: Jennifer A. Doudna
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0544716965
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 307
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Book Description
BY THE WINNER OF THE 2020 NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY | Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize “A powerful mix of science and ethics . . . This book is required reading for every concerned citizen—the material it covers should be discussed in schools, colleges, and universities throughout the country.”— New York Review of Books Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. That is, until 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the gene-editing tool CRISPR—a revolutionary new technology that she helped create—to make heritable changes in human embryos. The cheapest, simplest, most effective way of manipulating DNA ever known, CRISPR may well give us the cure to HIV, genetic diseases, and some cancers. Yet even the tiniest changes to DNA could have myriad, unforeseeable consequences, to say nothing of the ethical and societal repercussions of intentionally mutating embryos to create “better” humans. Writing with fellow researcher Sam Sternberg, Doudna—who has since won the Nobel Prize for her CRISPR research—shares the thrilling story of her discovery and describes the enormous responsibility that comes with the power to rewrite the code of life. “The future is in our hands as never before, and this book explains the stakes like no other.” — George Lucas “An invaluable account . . . We owe Doudna several times over.” — Guardian
Author: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Publisher: Time Inc. Books
ISBN: 1618935437
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 197
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Book Description
A New York Times and Washington Post Bestseller Bestselling author, basketball legend and cultural commentator Kareem Abdul-Jabbar explores the heart of issues that affect Americans today. Since retiring from professional basketball as the NBA's all-time leading scorer, six-time MVP, and Hall of Fame inductee, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has become a lauded observer of culture and society, a New York Times bestselling author, and a regular contributor to The Washington Post, TIME magazine and TIME.com. He now brings that keen insight to the fore in Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White, his most incisive and important work of non-fiction in years. He uses his unique blend of erudition, street smarts and authentic experience in essays on the country's seemingly irreconcilable partisan divide - both racial and political, parenthood, and his own experiences as an athlete, African-American, and a Muslim. The book is not just a collection of expositions; he also offers keen assessments of and solutions to problems such as racism in sports while speaking candidly about his experiences on the court and off. Timed for publication as the nation debates whom to send to the White House, the combination of plain talk on issues, life lessons, and personal stories places Writings on the Wall squarely in the middle of the conversation, as many of Abdul-Jabbar's topics are at the top of the national agenda. Whether it is sparring with Donald Trump, within the pages of TIME magazine, or full-length features in the The New York Times Magazine, writers, critics, and readers have come to agree on what The Washington Post observed: Abdul-Jabbar "has become a vital, dynamic and unorthodox cultural voice."
Author: Robert C. Rees
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199676860
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 469
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Book Description
Tumor immunology and immunotherapy provides a comprehensive account of cancer immunity and immunotherapy. Examining recent results, current areas of interest and the specific issues that are affecting the research and development of vaccines, this book provides insight into how these problems may be overcome as viewed by leaders in the field.
Author: Pamela Matson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400881218
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245
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Book Description
An essential guide to sustainable development for students and practitioners Sustainability is a global imperative and a scientific challenge like no other. This concise guide provides students and practitioners with a strategic framework for linking knowledge with action in the pursuit of sustainable development, and serves as an invaluable companion to more narrowly focused courses dealing with sustainability in particular sectors such as energy, food, water, and housing, or in particular regions of the world. Written by leading experts, Pursuing Sustainability shows how more inclusive and interdisciplinary approaches and systems perspectives can help you achieve your sustainability objectives. It stresses the need for understanding how capital assets are linked to sustainability goals through the complex adaptive dynamics of social-environmental systems, how committed people can use governance processes to alter those dynamics, and how successful interventions can be shaped through collaborations among researchers and practitioners on the ground. The ideal textbook for undergraduate and graduate students and an invaluable resource for anyone working in this fast-growing field, Pursuing Sustainability also features case studies, a glossary, and suggestions for further reading. Provides a strategic framework for linking knowledge with action Draws on the latest cutting-edge science and practices Serves as the ideal companion text to more narrowly focused courses Utilizes interdisciplinary approaches and systems perspectives Illustrates concepts with a core set of case studies used throughout the book Written by world authorities on sustainability An online illustration package is available to professors
Author: Frank McCourt
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 068484267X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
"A memoir about childhood, relilience, and the trumphant power of storytelling."--From back cover.
