On Monday, Katalin Karikó won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Her research with Drew Weissman, with whom she shares the prize, laid the foundation for the Covid-19 vaccines developed by BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna. During her time at the University of Pennsylvania she had trouble securing grant funding and bounced from lab to lab. "When I was doing the research I could see the promise," she tells CNBC Make It. She holds an undergraduate and masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles.

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Persons: Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman, Susan Francia Organizations: Medicine, BioNTech, Pfizer, Moderna, Karikó's, University of Pennsylvania, CNBC, University of California Locations: Los Angeles