The Vaccine: Inside the Race to Conquer the COVID-19 Pandemic

Intriguing book about the development of the COVID 19 vaccine. It was well written simplified explanations for some very complex scientific procedures and concepts. Kudos to the scientists and their steadfast breakthroughs and dedication to make it happen for all of us and the author for writing up the amazing historic story.

I pre ordered this book before realse date. It was wonderfuly written and informative. Very inspiring

THE VACCINE: INSIDE THE RACE TO CONQUER THE COVID-19 PANDEMICBY: JOE MILLERThis was a fantastic and profoundly interesting glimpse into one coup;e's dynamic knowledge and their foreboding early predictions of knowing ahead of time that we were heading into a pandemic. As early as January of 2020, Ugur Sahin was home reading a scientific journal and he saw where there was a SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Wuhan, China. Ugur and his wife Ozlem Tureci are doctors that are also research scientists that are both emigrated from Turkey where they have been living in Mainz, Germany running a cutting edge company named BioNTech. They have been using mRNA to treat cancerous tumors as immunologists which is cutting edge in their field. They owned a former company which was successful before developing BioNTech. Ugur, who while thinking about the virus outbreak was also trained in Mathematics. As Ugur did some quick calculations figuring in for Wuhan's size and the many travel routes in this city's metropolis he predicted that this could lead to a full scale, World wide International pandemic back in early January 2020. mRNA is messenger RNA which this couple used and they thought that they ought to try to develop a vaccine using mRNA to attack the bulbous spikes which are the part of what would later be called COVID19.This Author, Joe Miller has written an accessible book detailing these two amazing Scientists journey into the race to develop a Covid19 vaccine to help save lives from what they predicted would be a global crises. The Author provides a historical record of the steps that this couple used as a strategy to develop a safe vaccine in record time for emergency use. He also includes the multiple other health scares that the world has faced like Ebola, SARS, MERS, Polio, Small Pox, the Swine Flu that the Obama administration handled. Ugur and Ozlem didn't work in infectious disease, but from their success with mRNA, they thought that it could also be used to attack the spikes that pierce the lungs like Velcro and they used their immune system knowledge to develop in record time. They named their operation "Project Lightspeed."Developing a vaccine in months was no easy task. This book chronicles the process of every step of the way of the miraculous decisions that led to these two to harness a molecule that most of pharmacologists shunned. Starting with the recognizing that the fifty or so cases of this novel respiratory illness caused by Pathogens that broke the species barrier, known as zoonotic viruses, weren't uncommon, and the likelihood of a small cluster of infections leading to a public health crises was usually minimal except for this time. While Ugur read on that there was a submission from more than twenty Hong Kong based researchers offering an analysis of a "familial cluster of pneumonia associated with the 2019 novel coronavirus," didn't concern Ugur. What did concern him was the second part of the article, "indicating person-to-person transmission." A quintet of a family checked into a teaching hospital with all of the symptoms we associate with COVID19, but what terrified Ugur was that one member who was a child was asymptomatic and as the six member of the family a seven year old tested positive for the new coronavirus. This suggested that, unlike the SARS-CoV outbreak of 2002, here was a pathogen that could travel undetected between perfectly healthy people. It was, in effect a silent assassin as this family denied having come in contact with the animals and they were all sick except the seven year old. Ugur was no infectious disease expert, but he lived through SARS-CoV outbreak and its successor that emerged in Saudi Arabia a decade later, known as the Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, and out of curiosity he had studied the data modeling that predicted their rapid spread. He knew by instinct that with this emergence of a new undetected pathogen that could be spread unwittingly by healthy people in one of the most connected and populous cities provided an almost perfect platform for a pandemic. This with some calculations in the best case scenario could mean 2 million deaths worldwide, far surpassing recent epidemics. He told his wife and they began with the help of others the race to develop a vaccine using mRNA.This was absolutely fascinating to read about this multifaceted history in the making. They did join forces with Pfizer, but they did all of the work. There is so much information on this to encapsulate in a review. This was very engaging and I was able to understand the science thanks to the way this talented Author narrated this journey. There is so much that can go wrong developing a vaccine and it is all described in an easy to understand way. If you got the Pfizer vaccine you will learn the complex way that it was developed. Moderna used mRNA also but they were funded by the United States government. I really loved this and am so impressed how this Author was able to pack so much information in such a short book. I felt like I was a silent witness inside the narrative. I learned so much and am grateful that I read this. I was never bored and this doesn't read like a dense text book which I appreciated. I highly recommend giving this book consideration if you are interested in learning without being overwhelmed by not understanding the science.

A fascinating story of two scientists, husband and wife, who came up with the first vaccine against covid. What I appreciate most about this book is its breadth. It deals with the science, of course – explaining in detail how mRNA, coronaviruses or our immune system work – but more than half of the text is dedicated to purely practical hurdles that had to be overcome. Once you learn how much energy and time and good will and trust was needed and how many people were part of this gigantic project, it becomes clear what a truly monumental undertaking this was. It is incredible that there was a vaccine so soon.It certainly helps that the book is also a beautiful story of courage and determination. Şahin and Türeci were a laughingstock for several decades, but they never lost faith in the possibilities that mRNA could open up. And now, after so many years, they are vindicated.

I loved this book. It is so much more than just a science story. While there is much science involved, the story also involves politics, finance, business and, most importantly, people. The scope of the book is narrow in that it really is only about the BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and there is not much on the other vaccines. On the other hand, this allows the book to spend a lot of time on biography. I found the book hard to put down. It is well written, with a conversational tone, with . Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the advance reader copy.

Absolutely fascinating story on modern scientists at the center of the storm of a pandemic. A couple not much unlike the Curie's from the last century. A couple that set out to change the world of medicine and has probably saved millions of lives already.A fantastic read if you are into business biographies.

For those that don't do their own research and blindly follow corporate media, stop reading.The book was boring, but it did have good information on things like all the corners that were cut. They clearly state things like lipid nano particles have been known to travel throughout the body as seen in cancer technologies. They show on page 172 how they switched the RNA technology for their toxicology report and how they removed rats with adverse events. The "safe and effective" litters the book and anyone with an open mind knows that is relative...very relative. On page 212 they mention how the other pharma giants put their own vaccine development on hold due to adverse events in human trials, but they didn't have any issues, which we know is not true for Pfizer as per FOIA documents...and more.After reading the book, I felt the couple had good intentions. They brought their ideas a long way, but the book looks like a story to protect BioNTech from lawsuits. I hope they learn from their mistakes and get cancer treatments out, but not as quickly as the BT162b2.

Don't tell lies.

What a delight reading this book. It was the fastest book I read (in half a day) - that says a lot considering I get distracted when I am reading thanks to social media. The book is fast paced and very accessible.

邦訳を読んだ多くの人の書評にもあるようにコロナmRNAワクチン開発の経緯を詳述した素晴らしい本です。この本を読むとmRNAワクチンの有り難さもひとしお。英語で読めば尚更です(ただしカリコ博士の業績など基盤となるアカデミックなbreakthrough については記載が乏しいのでご注意。あくまでベンチャー企業の開発苦労話です。)

こ、こりゃまた面白い。新型コロナウイルスに対するmRNAワクチン（ファイザーと共同販売。コミナティ）の製造を行なったドイツのバイオテック企業BioNTechの話。創業者であるトルコ系移民Dr. Ozlem Tureciとその夫であるDr. Ugar Sahinの2人に焦点を絞り、パンデミック前後の動きを丹念に記載。共著者名にもある通り、本人たちが主役。臨床医生活の中で出会った2人が新規医療の模索の中、mRNAというテクノロジーを用いた癌治療へと夢を咲かせる。仕事尽くめで、バケーション先にも巨大コンピューターモニターを別送するとの記載もあり、寝てから起きるまでサイエンス漬けで、自動車もテレビもない小さなアパートで娘と暮らす生活が妙に貧相。実際に日本円に換算し、数百億円の負債を抱え、金集めに奔走する姿もリアル。しかし、いつかは商品化、、、との夢を持ちつつ、楽観的に暮らす姿が妙に自信に溢れているのは、本質を追求している科学者ならではの確信からなのか。そのような中で、2010年台後半に悪性黒色腫に対するmRNAワクチンの極めて有効との臨床データを背景に、エポックメークな商品化を進めていた矢先の2019年暮れ。中国の一地方都市での謎の感染症蔓延、、、そのニュースに接するや否や、即座に情報収集とそしてmRNAワクチン開発に着手。Lightspeed projectと名づけ、驚異的スピードでワクチン開発成功へと辿りついたのはご存じの通り。人類史初のmRNAワクチンがドイツの小さなバイテクノロジー会社から生み出された背景には情熱と才能に溢れた2人の科学者の存在を抜きには語れないことが如実にわかります。最終治験の直前にmRNAにコードする構造分子をスパイクタンパクの受容体結合ドメインのいう小さい構造体のものから、スパイクタンパク質全体への大胆に路線変更したあたりは、この科学者の持つ直感力の凄さも感じさせます。これから近い将来、癌のmRNAワクチン治療のみならず、マラリア、結核、インフルエンザなどなど、これまでのワクチンとは違った感染症予防の世界が広がることが容易に想像できる、、、この間の技術進歩に驚嘆。こりゃすごい。