The Vaccine: Inside the Race to Conquer the COVID-19 Pandemic

(Paperback)

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Description

When the world stopped, all hopes rested on finding a vaccine. An unlikely team answered the call.

Before Covid-19 was even given its name, a select group of scientists in Germany, assembled by married couple and decades-long research partners Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, began building 20 potential vaccines.

As the deadly disease spread from country to country, what followed was a desperate race against time to conduct rigorous tests and clinical trials, whilst navigating political interference and seeking the support of the pharmaceutical industry.

Shedding a light on the science behind the breakthrough, The Vaccine tells the story of the trailblazers who led the fightback against Covid-19, whose discoveries could now help the world tackle cancer, along with many other pervasive diseases. It draws back the curtain on one of the most important medical achievements of our age, containing contributions from the fascinating couple themselves, as well as more than 60 scientists, politicians, public health officials, and BioNTech staff.

More suspenseful than a novel, this is a real-life story of an extraordinary race against time to save the world.

Reviews

'I have now read the book by Joe Miller about the development of the vaccine at Biontech. Uur ahin had already understood the dimension of the pandemic on 24 January. I wasn't that quick' -- Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
'zlem Treci and Uur ahin are rapidly becoming the most celebrated marriage in science since Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radioactivity' * The Times *
'They are the symbol of a remarkable scientific and business success story' * Financial Times (FT People of the Year) *
'The story of their quest to use a novel scientific method to defeat that disease, as well as cancer and others, would suffice to make them heroes of our time' * Bloomberg *

Author Bio

Joe Miller is the Financial Times's Frankfurt correspondent who covered BioNTech's COVID-19 project in real time, giving him considerable knowledge and expertise on the subject. The book also has considerable contributions from Uur ahin and zlem Treci themselves, giving rare first-person accounts. It contains contributions from more than 50 scientists, politicians, public health officials, and BioNTech staff. Dr. Uur ahin and Dr. zlem Treci are the husband-and-wife team that cofounded BioNTech, developers of the world's first COVID-19 vaccine. The children of Turkish migrant workers in Germany, they trained as medical doctors and earned doctorates in molecular biology and immunotherapy. They have done extensive work in the field of translational oncology and written hundreds of scientific papers and patents. ahin and Treci received the 2022 Paul Ehrlich Prize for their contributions to research into mRNA technology.