The first recipients of the Outstanding Service to Humanity Award, given for the first time by the Vehbi Koç Foundation, are the founders of BioNTech, scientists Prof. Dr. Özlem Türeci and Prof. Dr. Uğur Şahin. So we set out to make a film telling their story and we ended up in Mainz, Germany. Right in the laboratory where they found the vaccine!
Working on a film with Özlem Türeci and Uğur Şahin, who entered all of our lives silently but left deep traces, is like nothing else. First of all, apart from the film equipment, you appear before them with a great debt of gratitude. As you get to know them and witness their humble stance, that debt of gratitude gradually gives way to admiration.
The story of how these two respected scientists met goes back many years. As children of Turkish families from Germany, they met in an oncology laboratory. They bond with each other as soon as they meet. This commitment is not just an emotional commitment. There's something else they both have their hearts set on: finding better treatment options for people.
His studies focus on mRNA technology, which is still in its infancy, and focuses mainly on cancer treatment. They come to a crossroads in order to continue on the path they believe in and provide the necessary resources. In the end, they decide to establish a bio-technology company, as Özlem Türeci puts it, "out of desperation". They have to co-exist concepts that seem irreconcilable at first glance, such as science, invention and entrepreneurship. Thus, BioNTech is born.
While BioNTech's mRNA-based cancer research is starting to give its first positive results, the world is meeting the COVID-19 virus. Uğur Şahin is one of the first people to see that the emerging virus would turn into a pandemic. Şahin does not stop there, he and his team roll up their sleeves to develop a medicine that will cure the disease with the technology they have. You already know what comes next.
At the end of this extraordinary journey, Prof. Dr. Özlem Türeci and Prof. Dr. They also became the first recipients of the Uğur Şahin Vehbi Koç Foundation's Outstanding Service to Humanity Award. They received the plaque presented to them at the ceremony held at Koç University on the night of June 25, 2022, and asked that the 200 thousand dollar prize money be used for scientific research and students in need.
At one point in our film, Uğur Şahin mentions the saying "A cup of coffee has a forty year's worth" to underline the Turks' commitment to their values. That's when people say, "If a cup of coffee is remembered for forty years, how many years is the memory of the vaccine that saved the lives of millions of people?" onee can't help but ask himself.
