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

by Joe Miller, Özlem Türeci, Ugur Sahin

Overview

Winners of the Paul Ehrlich Prize

The dramatic story of the married scientists who founded BioNTech and developed the first vaccine against COVID-19.

Nobody thought it was possible. In mid-January 2020, Ugur Sahin told Özlem Türeci, his wife and decades-long research partner, that a vaccine against what would soon be known as COVID-19 could be developed and safely injected into the arms of millions before the end of the year. His confidence was built upon almost thirty years of research. While working to revolutionize the way that cancerous tumors are treated, the couple had explored a volatile and overlooked molecule called messenger RNA; they believed it could be harnessed to redirect the immune system's forces against any number of diseases. As the founders of BioNTech, they faced widespread skepticism from the scientific community at first; but by the time Sars-Cov-2 was discovered in Wuhan, China, BioNTech was prepared to deploy cutting edge technology and create the world’s first clinically approved inoculation for the coronavirus.

The Vaccine draws back the curtain on one of the most important medical breakthroughs of our age; it will reveal how Doctors Sahin and Türeci were able to develop twenty vaccine candidates within weeks, convince Big Pharma to support their ambitious project, navigate political interference from the Trump administration and the European Union, and provide more than three billion doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to countries around the world in record time.

Written by Joe Miller—the Financial Times’ Frankfurt correspondent who covered BioNTech’s COVID-19 project in real time—with contributions from Sahin and Türeci, as well as interviews with more than sixty scientists, politicians, public health officials, and BioNTech staff, the book covers key events throughout the extraordinary year, as well as exploring the scientific, economic, and personal background of each medical innovation. Crafted to be both completely accessible to the average reader and filled with details that will fascinate seasoned microbiologists, The Vaccine explains the science behind the breakthrough, at a time when public confidence in vaccine safety and efficacy is crucial to bringing an end to this pandemic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250280367
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/01/2022
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	1,039,366
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Joe Miller is the Frankfurt correspondent for Financial Times. He previously reported for BBC News in London, New York, Delhi, and Berlin.

Dr. Ugur Sahin and Dr. Özlem Türeci are the husband-and-wife team that cofounded BioNTech, developer 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. Sahin and Türeci received the 2022 Paul Ehrlich Prize for their contributions to research into mRNA technology.

Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

Prologue: The Coventry Miracle 1

1 The Outbreak 3

2 Project Lightspeed 30

3 The Unknowns 61

4 The mRNA Biohackers 82

5 The Tests 108

6 Forging Alliances 128

7 First in Human 158

8 On Our Own 179

9 It Works! 211

10 The New Normal 230

Epilogue 246

Appendix 249

Acknowledgments 251

Notes 253

Index 271

Editorial Reviews

01/10/2022

Financial Times correspondent Miller delivers a fascinating survey of the remarkable achievements of doctors Türeci and Sahin, a married couple whose groundbreaking work on messenger RNA led to the rapid development of the Covid-19 vaccine. This gripping account walks readers through Türeci and Sahin’s extraordinary scientific work; as Miller notes, there was no “single breakthrough that underpinned the medical triumph” leading to the vaccine—rather, Türeci and Sahin, who founded the German biotechnology company BioNTech, and their colleagues built upon decades of prior efforts. In January 2020, Sahin told BioNTech’s chairman he thought a new method could be developed to fight the deadly disease: having immunizing antigens produced using “a code that let the patient produce their own drug.” The foreshadowing can be a bit heavy-handed (“Little did the couple know, however, that the technology they were on the cusp of perfecting would be catapulted onto a much larger stage in just fifteen months time”) and unnecessary given the narrative’s inherent drama and readers’ general familiarity with the arc of the pandemic. Still, lay readers interested in learning more about how the vaccine came to be will find this a fine place to start. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"I have now read the book by Joe Miller about the development of the vaccine at BioNTech. Ugur Sahin had already understood the scale of the pandemic on 24 January. I wasn't that quick." — Angela Merkel, former Chancellor of Germany, Süddeutsche Zeitung

“Özlem Türeci and Ugur Sahin are rapidly becoming the most celebrated marriage in science since Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radioactivity.” —The Times (London)

“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

"A fascinating survey of the remarkable achievements of doctors Türeci and Sahin, a married couple whose groundbreaking work on messenger RNA led to the rapid development of the Covid-19 vaccine." —Publishers Weekly

"A fine account of a medical tour de force." —Kirkus

From the Publisher

2021-12-27
The story of the development of the first effective Covid-19 vaccine.

Readers of Gregory Zuckerman’s excellent A Shot To Save the World learned about the complex mix of unparalleled science, rampant ambition, and fierce competition that led to the creation of a viable vaccine. Miller, the Frankfurt correspondent for the Financial Times who reported on the scientific race, tells a different but equally gripping story that emphasizes aggressive German startup BioNTech, founded by the brilliant husband-and-wife team of Türeci and Şahin. Miller narrates the story, which begins in January 2020 with the workaholic Şahin noting a news story about the emergence of a “novel respiratory illness” in Wuhan, China, that was not yet concerning world epidemiologists. What disturbed him was evidence that healthy people could carry the virus and transmit it, unlike previous (and short-lived) epidemics of SARS and MERS in 2002. Using his experience and calculations, he concluded that it was likely the beginning of a global pandemic. Of course, he was correct, although the World Health Organization didn’t come around until six weeks later. Şahin predicted perhaps 3 million deaths; the number is now over 4 million. At the time, BioNTech concentrated on anti-cancer drugs and was struggling financially. Yet Türeci and Şahin convinced executives (who controlled the money) to change course and devote their entire force to making a vaccine. There follows a vivid, complex (sometimes overly so) description of the frantic 10 months that followed as the company dealt with the political, immunological, technical, statistical, and public relations problems of bringing a radical new vaccine to market in record time. Remarkably, they succeeded. In mass testing of 170 individuals who were infected with Covid-19, only 8 had received the vaccine—a success rate of 95%. Pfizer had worked with BioNTech, especially in the testing and marketing approval process, so many Americans know it as the Pfizer vaccine, but it was conceived in Germany by two Turkish-born scientists.

A fine account of a medical tour de force.

Kirkus Reviews