Here’s to the Immigrant Heroes Behind the BioNTech Vaccine
Like many other entrepreneurs and innovators, the scientists developing the leading vaccine candidate against Covid-19 have foreign roots.
Heroes of our time.
Photos: BioNTech SE 2020
Thank heavens for people like Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci. Husband and wife, they’re cofounders of BioNTech SE, the German company that — with its American partner Pfizer Inc. — appears closest to rolling out a working vaccine against Covid-19. He’s the chief executive officer, she’s the chief medical officer.
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. But it should also offer inspiration and cause reflection in another way: They’re both from immigrant families.