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The most promising vaccine against the coronavirus to date is also an example of the long-term value of curiosity-driven basic research and its funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation). The so-called mRNA vaccine platform, which the Mainz-based company BioNTech uses in its Covid-19 vaccine developed jointly with the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer, can be traced back to preliminary work carried out from 2006 to 2008 in a project within a DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) on cancer research at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. This in turn was also tied to previous DFG-funded research.
The project was led by the later founder and current CEO of BioNTech, Professor Dr. U?ur ?ahin, whose name and person are closely associated with the development of the BNT162b2 vaccine, which will be deployed immediately following its approval in the United Kingdom and its anticipated approval in the USA and the EU. In addition to him, Privatdozent Dr. Özlem Türeci, ?ahin's wife, who as Chief Medical Officer of BioNTech is also significantly involved in the Covid-19 vaccine, conducted research in a project in the Collaborative Research Centre. The spokesperson of the CRC was immunologist and oncologist Professor Dr. Christoph Huber, who was also one of the subsequent founders of BioNTech and is now a member of the company's supervisory board.