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BERLIN (AP) – The scientist who won the race to deliver the first widely used coronavirus vaccine says people can rest assured the vaccines are safe and that the technology behind it will soon be used to fight another global scourge : the cancer.
Ozlem Tureci, who co-founded German company BioNTech with her husband, was working on a way to harness the body’s immune system to fight tumors when they learned last year that an unknown virus was infecting people in China .
Over breakfast, the couple decided to apply the technology they had researched for two decades to the new threat, dubbing the effort “Project Lightspeed.”
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In 11 months, Great Britain had authorized the use of the mRNA vaccine BioNTech developed with the American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, followed a week later by the United States. Tens of millions of people around the world have received the vaccine since December. Israel, the world leader in per capita vaccinations, uses Pfizer jabs extensively.
“It pays to make bold decisions and have confidence that if you have an amazing team, you will be able to resolve any issues and obstacles that come your way in real time,” Tureci told the Associated Press in an interview.
One of the biggest challenges for the small Mainz-based company that had yet to bring a product to market was how to conduct large-scale clinical trials in different regions and how to scale up the manufacturing process to meet the demand. global demand.
Along with Pfizer, the company tapped Fosun Pharma in China “to get assets, capabilities and a geographic footprint on board, which we didn’t have,” Tureci said.
Among the lessons she and her husband, CEO of BioNTech, Ugur Sahin, learned with their colleagues was “the importance of cooperation and collaboration at the international level”.
Husband and wife Ugur Sahin, second from right, and Ozlem Tureci, second from left, the founders of coronavirus vaccine developer BioNTech, pose for a photo during an Axel Springer Award ceremony for the researcher couple released on the Internet, Thursday March 18, 2021 (Bernd von Jutrczenka / dpa via AP, Pool)
Tureci, who was born in Germany to Turkish immigrants, said the company, which has staff from 60 countries, contacted medical oversight bodies early on, to ensure the new type of vaccine passed. strict control of regulators.
“The drug or vaccine approval process is one where many questions are asked, many experts are involved and there is external peer review of all the data and scientific discourse,” said she declared.
Amid fear in Europe this week over the coronavirus vaccine made by Anglo-Swedish rival AstraZeneca, Tureci dismissed the idea that all corners were cut by those running to develop a vaccine.
“There’s a very rigid process in place and the process doesn’t stop after a vaccine is approved,” she said. “In fact, this is now continuing all over the world, where regulators have used reporting systems to track and assess any observations made with our or other vaccines.”
A man receives a Pfizer vaccine at a vaccination center in Amman, Jordan, January 13, 2021 (AP Photo / Raad Adayleh)
Tureci and her colleagues have all received the BioNTech vaccine themselves, she told the AP. “Yes, we have been vaccinated,” she said.
As BioNTech’s profile grew during the pandemic, its value also increased, providing funds the company can use to further its original goal of developing a new tool against cancer.
Vaccines made by BioNTech-Pfizer and its US rival Moderna use messenger RNA, or mRNA, to deliver instructions to the human body to make proteins that prime it to attack a specific virus. The same principle can be applied to get the immune system to attack tumors.
“We have several different mRNA-based cancer vaccines,” said Tureci, who is the chief medical officer of BioNTech.
Asked when such therapy might be available, Tureci said, “It’s very difficult to predict in innovative development. But we expect that in just a few years we will also have our vaccines. [against] cancer in a place where we can offer it to people.
Vials of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, December 20, 2020 (AP Photo / Ariel Schalit)
For now, Tureci and Sahin are trying to ensure that vaccines ordered by governments are delivered and that vaccines respond effectively to any further mutations in the virus.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier awarded the wife and husband one of the country’s highest decorations, the Order of Merit, on Friday at a ceremony attended by Chancellor Angela Merkel, a scientist from training itself.
“You started with a drug to treat cancer in one person,” Steinmeier told the couple. “And today we have a vaccine for all of humanity.”
Ozlem Tureci, 3rd from left, and her husband Ugur Sahin, 2nd from right, both scientists and founders of BioNTech, pose with their orders after being awarded the Federal Cross of Merit by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, 2nd left , March 19, 2021 at the Bellevue Presidential Palace in Berlin, Germany (Odd Andersen / Pool Photo via AP)
Tureci said ahead of the ceremony that receiving the award was “truly an honor”.
But she insisted that developing the vaccine was the work of many.
“This is the effort of many: our team at BioNTech, all partners involved, also governments, regulatory authorities, who have worked together with a sense of urgency,” said Tureci. “The way we see it is an acknowledgment of this effort and also a celebration of science.”
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