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The development of the vaccine is funded by the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, and the research is being carried out by BioNTech, a German company founded by researchers, doctors Uguro Sahino and Ozlem Tureci, according to Skynews and Reuters.
They are called the ‘brains’ of coronavirus vaccines that can make a big difference.
The scientist, businessman Professor U. Sahin (55) and Dr. O. Tureci (53) are currently among the 100 richest people in Germany, and their BioNTech company was valued at $ 21 billion before it was developed. the vaccine. Dollars.
They are the children of immigrants, who lived much more modestly at the beginning of their lives.
BioNTech CEO U. Sahin was born in Iskenderun, Turkey. His parents moved to West Germany when their son was four years old and his father worked at a Ford plant in Cologne.
The company’s chief physician, O. Tureci, was born in Germany to a Turkish physician who emigrated from Istanbul.
U. Sahin studied medicine in Cologne and Hamburg and eventually became interested in immunotherapy. He met his future wife early in his career.
In an interview, O. Tureci said that even on the wedding day, they both spent time working in the lab.
Spouses: researchers interested in drugs for oncological diseases. They led this passion in 2001. He founded his first company, Ganymed Pharmaceuticals.
The company conducted research using a genetically modified mRNA encoded to trick the body into fighting cancer and producing antibodies against cancer.
2016 they sold the company for $ 1.4 billion. Dollars. At the time, they were already developing BioNTech, which they had founded in 2008, and were looking for broader methods of cancer immunotherapy.
The work of spouses in exploring the potential of mRNA has proven extremely important in the development of a vaccine against COVID-19.
In January, Professor U. Sahin received a scientific paper on a coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China. They told him that mRNA cancer drugs were a little different from viral vaccines based on the mRNA molecule.
BioNTech quickly commissioned 500 employees to create various possible combinations. US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturer Fosun partnered with BioNTech in March.
Studies have shown that a vaccine that stimulates the body to produce antibodies is 90% effective protection against COVID-19 infection.
According to his colleagues, Professor U. Sahin is a modest man.
His colleague Matthias Theobald, a professor of oncology at the University of Mainz, where Professor U. Sahin still teaches, said: “He is an ordinary and very modest person. External things are not important to him. He wants to create structures that allow him to realize his visions, but here his aspirations are far from being modest. “
Matthias Kromayer, a member of the BioNTech board of directors, called MIG Tuereci and Sahin a dream team that combined their visions with the limitations of reality.
Sahin told Reuters on Monday that the poll was “surprisingly successful.” According to the researcher, he had not previously foreseen how difficult this task would be, on the other hand, it was already seen at the beginning of the investigation that this was possible.
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