This immigrant couple could finally defeat Corona: the two are already tough – abroad

The address where Mainz pharmaceutical company Biontech is located couldn’t have a better name: “In Gold Mine 12”. Biontech could really become a gold mine. The stock exchange price of the biotech company, founded in 2008, rose 20 percent for a brief period on Monday after the Mainz-based company announced that its corona vaccine offers protection of possibly more than 90 percent against Covid-19. Despite all the open questions, the report made headlines around the world and generated excitement in specialist circles.

The story becomes extraordinary, especially for the two founders and researchers of Biontech who developed the long-awaited vaccine in their laboratory in Mainz during the last ten months: Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, both renowned German doctors, whose parents once came from Turkey. Germany immigrated. Sahin, the 55-year-old head of Biontech, came with his mother from Turkey to Cologne with his father at the age of four and studied medicine at the University of Cologne. The immunologist and cancer researcher completed his doctorate with a thesis on immunotherapy for tumor cells.

With assets of 2.4 billion euros, they are among the richest Germans.

Özlem Türeci was born in Lower Saxony as the daughter of an Istanbul doctor in an academic family. The 53-year-old now heads the Department of Clinical Development at Biontech. With an estimated fortune of 2.4 billion euros, the two are among the 100 richest Germans.

In Germany there is already great admiration for the two researchers, who until now are little known to the general public. If Biontech and the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which was involved in the development of the RNA vaccine, help society to break free from the shackles of the pandemic soon, the research couple with Turkish roots would achieve global recognition.

The two researchers are already arousing the pride of many of the roughly three million German Turks. According to a study by the Berlin Institute, German Turks are considered the worst integrated immigrant group. Seventy per cent of the German-Turks living in Berlin had, at best, a high school completion certificate. Education, often marginal, means that many German Turks have low-paying jobs or are even unemployed. The story of the rise of two sons of Turkish immigrants to the top of the world in medical research may serve as an incentive for some in your own life.

The medical couple, who met at the Homburg an der Saar Clinic and, according to Özlem Türeci, were still working in his laboratory on the morning of their wedding day, set up a research laboratory at the Mainz University Hospital to work on the development of a vaccine against cancer. This vaccine based on the messenger substance ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is supposed to trigger an immune system reaction to fight tumor cells in the body. The vision of the research couple: individualize therapy for each cancer patient. In 2001, the two founded the company Ganymed for the development of anticancer antibody therapies. According to media reports, the company was acquired by Japanese pharmaceutical company Astellas in 2016 for 1.28 billion euros.

Europe has ordered 200 million doses of vaccines: only Switzerland has yet to reach an agreement with the manufacturer

Using the same mRNA method, Sahin and Türeci have been developing the corona virus vaccine since January. The mRNA vaccine contains genetic information about the pathogen, from which the body produces a viral protein; in the case of corona, the surface protein with which the virus enters cells. The goal of the vaccine is to stimulate the body to produce antibodies against the protein. Sahin described the interim results of the vaccine, which bears the BNT162b2 designation, as a “milestone” on the way to a “return to normalcy.”

The vaccine will be approved first in the US and then also in the EU this year. The EU Commission has already signed a contract with Biontech and Pfizer. For Europe, at the moment 200 million doses of vaccine are ordered, with the option of another 100 million. Switzerland has not yet signed a contract with Biontech.

Despite the unusually rapid pace of vaccine development (vaccine preparations are generally approved after eight to ten years), Ugur Sahin emphasizes that the vaccine will be safe and well tolerated.

This is what Sahin, who worked at the Zurich University Hospital in 2000 and 2001, said in an interview with the FAZ. Clear tolerability and efficacy data are needed. “We will not submit a request for approval that does not have this information.”