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Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci:
"Özlem and I are very happy about the award"
Photo:
Stefan F. Saemmer / imago images
The independent jury of innovation experts in the top management levels of the German economy has decided: This year,
Uğur Şahin
(55) and
Özlem Türeci (
53), the Turkish-born founders of Biontech SE and developers, will be appointed to the
Hall of Fame of German research
of the first vaccine against Covid-19.
The vaccine is based on the completely new vaccine effect of the programmable messenger molecule ("mRNA") from the interior of living cells and has been used millions of times worldwide since December.
"Özlem and I are very happy about the award and are happy to accept the election," says Laureat Şahin, who heads Biontech as CEO and speaks for himself and his wife, medical director at Biontech.
"Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci have achieved extraordinary things in extraordinary times: The development of their vaccine is a scientific milestone that will save countless lives in this pandemic," says
Stefan Oschmann
(63), CEO and CEO of the Darmstadt-based Merck Group Member of the jury.
"The mRNA technology, which the couple helped to develop, opens the door to a new generation of targeted vaccines and therapies for patients worldwide. The appointment of both scientists to the Hall of Fame of German research is highly deserved - I congratulate them warmly!"
Significant contribution to Germany as a business location
The Hall of Fame for German Research was launched in 2009 by manager magazin.
Every year, it honors scientists who, through their lifetime achievements, have not only made significant progress in the German research landscape, but have also made Germany more sustainable as a business location.
The 25 laureates to date include Nobel Prize winners such as
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard
(78, Medicine 1995),
Theodor Haensch
(79, Physics 2005) and, most recently,
Emmanuelle Charpentier
(51, Chemistry 2020), but also industry-related researchers such as
Karlheinz Brandenburg
(66), team leader in the development of the data compression program mp3 at Fraunhofer IIS in Erlangen,
Joachim Milberg
(77), mechanical engineering professor and former chairman of the board and supervisory board at BMW, or
August-Wilhelm Scheer
(79), business IT specialist and founder of IDS Scheer, once the third largest in Germany Software company.
The eight-member jury selects the laureates of the Research Hall of Fame every year from suggestions made by the Scientific Board of Trustees and previous laureates.
The jury members include
Roland Busch
(56), CEO at Siemens,
Markus Schäfer
(55), Research Director and COO at Daimler, and
Sabina Jeschke
(52), Digitization
Director at
Deutsche Bahn.
The celebration of the appointment to the Hall of Fame of German Research, which is sponsored by the Darmstadt-based Merck Group, will take place in autumn.