Sometimes it's helpful to put a face to a name…

Over the past year and a half, hesitancy to get the COVID-19 vaccine has been driven by a combination of understandable concerns, frustrating misconceptions, and a belief that individual freedoms supersede the greater good. One of the misconceptions that have been frustrating is the belief that the COVID-19 vaccine was developed far too quickly. In this fascinating TED Talk from August 2021, Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci talk about their life’s work with mRNA, cancer treatments, and their turn towards the development of the vaccine.

For decades, these two scientists were studying cancer, the uniqueness of each individual tumor, and thoughts about how mRNA could be used to teach the immune system to fight off the cancer cells. Different than a lot of medicine, which utilizes chemicals to shift the chemical background in the body to kill off diseased cells, mRNA is programmed with the genetic instructions to teach the body’s immune system how to fight off the disease in question. These two scientists had been working on utilizing mRNA to do this in cancer treatments for decades, and then the world came upon the pandemic.

This interview recounts the remarkable history of the two scientists responsible for developing the technology that allowed the world to develop vaccines at a record pace, safely….without cutting corners.