The inside story of the life-or-death race for a COVID-19 vaccine
"Ours is an age of outbreaks". With A Shot to Save the World (2021), Gregory Zuckerman investigates how the mad rush for a COVID-19 vaccine began with slow progress through decades in different parts of the world, by people who were strangers to each other.
This is the story behind the science and the competitive race against time and deadly viruses by now familiar names, such as Moderna, CureVac, Pfizer, Oxford, BioNTech, among others.
Between astonishing breakthroughs, confidentiality agreements, patents and trials, Zuckerman states he could have written two books instead of one. Determined to focus on how science protected the world, he held interviews with over three hundred scientists, academics, executives, government officials, investors, and others.
From the injustices of oblivion, the author rescues the names of the characters that changed the course of history.
"A French executive dismissed by some as a fabulist. A Turkish immigrant with little experience working on viruses. A quirky midwesterner obsessed with insect cells. A Boston scientist employing questionable, maybe even dangerous techniques. A British scientist detested by his peers".
Based on first-person accounts and recollections, the book does a great job explaining to the average reader why companies are weary of developing vaccines, what was so novel about working with mRNA vaccines, and what does this mean for our future.
The breakthrough of using mRNA would mean that "DNA wouldn't be directly involved so there wouldn't be a risk of causing mutations that cause cancer, as with gene therapy. And the mRNA approach was so new and unique it likely wouldn't infringe on existing patents, meaning almost every kind of medicine could be produced without legal troubles from drugmakers. Best of all: If patients can make proteins for themselves, it would be like having a medicine factory in their own bodies".
From desperation to hope, society owes a lot to the hidden heroes that managed to jump the hurdles to get us where we are today.
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