What is the biggest obstacle you have faced professionally?
Originally asked
The American Academy of Achievement, to its honourees, its oral-history interviews
The Academy of Achievement repeatedly asks honorees to identify a major professional obstacle or challenge and describe confronting it.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Recorded
Katalin Karikó
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said elsewhere, not written here
Adam, if you know about 10 years ago, I was here in October because I was kicked out, from Penn, was forced to retire. Then my husband supported me and said that, you know, when finally visited in Germany and found that maybe BioNTech is the right place, then he said "Just try it and I will make sure that you don't regret." Looking back in my life he supported that I would go, and for nine years I commuted to BioNTech in Germany. I did all these experiments actually, with my own hands, I was 58 years old, I was still culturing plasmids and feeding cells, so it is very unlikely.
Adam Smith, Telephone interview recorded shortly after the prize announcement, October 2023, Nobel Prize Outreach, 1 October 2023
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According to Egyptian regulations, the chairman of the department, the dean of the faculty of sciences, the president of Alexandria University, and the minister of higher education, they all have to sign off.
Recorded
Heidi Aspaturian, Caltech Oral History Project, Caltech Archives Oral History Project, 2015
source ↗
I think one of the most important things that I’ve had to overcome is jealousy from the outside. Of learning that not everybody is going to be my friend.
Recorded
Academy of Achievement, 12 February 1991
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What I’ve got doesn’t hurt. I’ve been lucky. The treatment has been benign. I don’t know if I could concentrate if I was in pain. I’ve never had to stop.
Recorded
Robert McCrum, Interview at James's home in Cambridge, published in the Observer New Review, The Observer, 15 March 2015
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Logistically, technically, shooting at 48 frames per second, working in 3D – those were all huge challenges. The biggest lessons were more logistical – decision making on a day to day level. It was a very complex schedule, always shifting. So, those were huge challenges. Stamina-wise, there were many, many challenges.
Recorded
Mark Sells, MovieMaker Magazine, 31 January 2023
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Question
What is the book you have given most as a gift, and why?
Taste & recommendation
When I was 16 years old, I read the book from Hans Selye. Hans Selye is a Canadian scientist, but he was Hungarian so his book was translated to Hungarian. His mantra was that you have to focus on things that you can change. Many young ones are giving up because they can see that their friends or their colleagues are advancing, and it seems that they do less and somehow, they get higher salary and promoted. I told that if you notice that then you already took away your attention what you can change. Because you cannot change that.
Recorded
Adam Smith, Telephone interview recorded shortly after the prize announcement, Nobel Prize Outreach, 2 October 2023
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