The vaccine Inside the race to conquer the COVID-19 pandemic

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.)

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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.