Coronavirus: How scientist’s cancer research paved way for BioNTech’s vaccine

Since December, tens of millions of people have received the BioNTech shot developed by Dr Ozlem Tureci and her husband

The couple had been doing cancer research for two decades when the pandemic hit, and decided to apply the technology to the new threat

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Dr Ozlem Tureci co-founded BioNTech with her husband. Photo: AP

Published: 11:35pm, 19 Mar 2021Updated: 2:50am, 20 Mar 2021

The European scientist who won the race to deliver the first widely-used coronavirus vaccine says people can rest assured the shots are safe, and the technology behind it will soon be used to fight another global scourge – cancer.

Dr Ozlem Tureci, who co-founded the German company BioNTech with her husband, was working on a way to harness the body’s immune system to tackle tumours when they learned last year of an unknown virus infecting people in China.

Over breakfast, the couple decided to apply the technology they’d been researching for two decades to the new threat, dubbing the effort “Project Lightspeed”.

Dr Ozlem Tureci and her husband, Dr Ugur Sahin were recognised for their work in Germany on March 19, 2021. Photo: dpa/AP

Within 11 months, Britain had authorised the use of the mRNA vaccine that BioNTech developed with US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, followed a week later by the United States. Tens of millions of people worldwide have received the shot since December.

“It pays off to make bold decisions and to trust that if you have an extraordinary team, you will be able to solve any problem and obstacle which comes your way in real time,” Tureci said in an interview.

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