Scientists are too focused on racking up journal papers because it will look good on their CV, with many publications lacking novelty or insight, the Nobel Prize-winning biochemist behind the pandemic-ending mRNA vaccines has claimed.
In a swipe at inconsequential publications, Katalin Karikó, the US-Hungarian scientist whose research at the University of Pennsylvania paved the way for a new generation of vaccines, told a scientific conference in Germany that her own career had been hurt by not producing papers as regularly as her peers.
Speaking at the 75th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, Karikó said internal pressures to publish were often the driving force behind some papers produced by her former colleagues rather than the desire to produce novel science.
“They published when they had nothing to say but their students wanted to graduate or bosses wanted promotion,”Karikó told the summit on 29 June.
Describing her own up-and-down career, Karikó explained how she moved from Hungary to the US at the age of 30 after her lab lost its funding but lost two further research jobs – at Johns Hopkins University and University of Pennsylvania, where she was also demoted – before her research was finally recognised.
