The John Scott Award for 2021 was presented to Karikó in Philadelphia for creating a stable, safe mRNA construct.
On November 21, 2021, Katalin Karikó was presented with the 2021 John Scott Award in Philadelphia, one of America's oldest scientific and technical honors, dating back to the early 19th century.
The award specifically recognized Karikó's creation of a stable and safe mRNA construct capable of inducing gene-based immune responses — the essential technical breakthrough that made mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 possible.
The John Scott Award has a storied history, having previously honored inventors such as Marie Curie and the Wright Brothers, placing Karikó's achievement within a long lineage of transformative American scientific and technological innovation.
This award, presented in the city where Karikó conducted much of her pivotal research at the University of Pennsylvania, carried particular symbolic weight, recognizing local scientific achievement with global humanitarian consequences. It further reflected the accelerating wave of institutional recognition Karikó received in the two years following the emergency authorization of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.