The modern-day Curies: Meet the scientist couple behind 90% effective COVID-19 vaccine Türeci, also Muslim, is the German-born daughter of a Turkish doctor.
Sahin is a Turkish Muslim who partnered with Pfizer’s Albert Bourla, a Greek - two immigrants whose native lands have long been at odds. Sahin was sure a global pandemic was coming, even though enough of his top scientists were doubtful enough to complain about canceling their vacations.īy March, Sahin and Türeci’s company BioNTech had 20 possible versions ready for testing.Īnd their story has broader implications - hopeful, unifying ones. But after reading one article in The Lancet on a Friday, Sahin showed up at work the following Monday with one mandate: stop everything and develop a COVID vaccine. Sahin and Türeci began working on a vaccine for COVID in January, well before the world saw it as a true threat. Sahin and Türeci.īut magazines are increasingly insignificant, and with this lame choice Time whistles past the graveyard.
How relevant they would have been in choosing Drs. Time announced their pick as the FDA considered final approval for the coronavirus vaccine. Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci Imago via ZUMA Press What it means for science and progress is yet to be fully understood, but we have taken a quantum leap in beating back a novel pandemic.
This vaccine is the equivalent of landing on the moon. Yet here we are, about to emerge from this nightmare faster than expected. In October, PBS reported that whatever vaccine the FDA fast-tracked wouldn’t be effective enough. No one changed the world this year more than they have.īut here’s Time magazine, a dinosaur even in virtue-signaling.īack in April, Bloomberg News warned that expecting a COVID vaccine within the year was unrealistic. Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, who have yet to receive the global fame and recognition they so deserve. Heroes, it should be noted, who are apolitical. In a year unlike any other - a global pandemic paralyzing the world, panic and fear our dominant emotions, a cratering economy, a generation of children suffering educational and psychological slides - it’s a no-brainer as to 2020’s undisputed heroes. (But she had to share.)Īs if we needed any more proof that most mainstream media outlets remain brainwashed by Trump Derangement Syndrome, it’s the knee-jerk choice of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, a ticket so unexciting that their predicted landslide never came to pass. Incredibly, Time magazine’s Person of the Year is a two-time presidential loser unenthusiastically put forward by his party as the best hope of unseating Donald Trump - and his running mate, at least a new face in national politics. Lindbergh was 25 at the time, while Queen Elizabeth II made the list in 1952 at age 26, and Martin Luther King in 1963 at age 34.Really? Not the inventors of the COVID vaccine? A vaccine we were told was years away? As of the close of trading on Friday, the stock, which has split three times, was worth $94 a share.īezos is the fourth youngest person to be named Time's Man of the Year since the magazine began the tradition in 1927 with aviator Charles Lindbergh. "He's a symbol of dotcom companies that don't turn a profit but have high market valuations."Ī went public in 1997 at $18 a share. 'The fact that hasn't turned a profit and may be a bubble is part of the news and part of the story," Isaacson told Reuters. Four years later, the company has a total of 13.1 million customers and is at the forefront of online retailing, which is expected to attract $8 billion worth of sales this year, up from $3 billion in 1998.ĭespite the explosive growth, Bezos has had to contend with frequent Wall Street criticism of his ambitious expansion plans for and doubts about when, or whether, it will ever turn a profit.