Our September 2024 Meeting

The Summit Bookends had the pleasure of meeting at Nina’s today for  a Hungarian celebration in honor of our author Katalin Karikó, whose memoir Breaking Through: My Life in Science was the center of our discussion.  Nina invited her Hungarian friend Susanna Fussenegger to join us.  Susanna prepared a delicious Csikenpaprikash (Chicken Paprika) for our lunch which was served over tri-color rotini pasta.  Nina also served a cucumber salad, sliced baguettes with butter, and vanilla ice cream topped with Apricot Schnapps and whipped cream for dessert. The table was lovely decorated in the colors of the Hungarian flag red, green, and white . ( I’m sorry I didn’t get a photo!)

Thank you, Nina for a lovely afternoon!  Many thanks also to Susanna for her insights into life in Hungary and for her chef skills!

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Dr. Karikó was born in 1955 and grew up in a small town in communist ruled Hungary.  Her family home had no running water and Katalin was often sick as a child.  Suffering through constant hardships, it was during these early years that Kati, as she was called, developed a lifelong curiosity and undying love of science.  She went on to study Biology at the University of Szeged where she met her husband, Béla, and went onto earn her PhD in Biochemistry.  After their daughter was born, they moved to the United States where she found more opportunities for her scientific research.  She spent many years doing research on mRNA.  She worked in the lab at a couple of large universities, but eventually was fired by the University of Pennsylvania for not finding grants to finance her research. Karikó then went to work for BioNTech/Pfizer where she was instrumental in developing their vaccine for Covid-19.  In 2023 she and her partner Dr. Drew Weissman were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine. 

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Nina shared a couple of stories about her sister and her son Karsten which made this book very personal to her. This was an excellent autobiography which we all enjoyed.  

Upcoming:

• October 15, noon, lunch at Bluebird Market in Silverthorne and a discussion of The Women by Kristin Hannah.

• November 15, noon, Susan will host us at her sister’s home to discuss The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See.

• December TBD

We selected our month to host in 2025.  January, May, July, and December are still available.  Let me know which you would like if you weren’t able to make today’s gathering.

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Also, it was suggested that we change up the Birthday Box next year.  We’ve been gifting it to the same person each year, so next year we will draw names to see who we give the Birthday Box to.

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Enjoy the lovely Fall colors and cooler temps!  See you next month.