Özlem Türeci

Turkish scientists Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, the co-founders of BioNTech, have announced that their cancer vaccine has succeeded in halting tumor growth and reducing its size in their initial tests.

Uğur Şahin, one of BioNTech's co-founders, has announced that their company's cancer treatment medicine will hit the shelves as early as 2026.

Şahin, who has been working with his wife Dr. Özlem Türeci for many years on treatments targeting various types of cancers, especially bowel cancer, stated that the drugs they have developed could be on the market in a few years.

Vaccines to fight cancer will be widely available before 2030, say husband and wife Prof. Ugur Şahin and Prof. Özlem Tureçi, creators of one of the most successful vaccines against COVID-19, writes in the New York Times.

Lessons learned from the pandemic will accelerate cancer treatments based on mRNA technology, they say.

Scientists Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, a Turkish-German couple who are the cofounders of BioNTech, the first effective COVID-19 vaccine that saved millions of lives, have said they are planning to start clinical studies in Türkiye next year under the BioNTech brand.

The Turkish-German couple, who invented BioNTech, the first effective vaccine against COVID-19, with the U.S. giant Pfizer and saved millions of lives, has now succeeded in developing a vaccine that prevents pancreatic cancer from reforming.

Two Turkish-German scientists were awarded Greece's Empress Theophano Prize on Oct. 13 for saving millions of lives with the development of the first vaccine against the coronavirus, according to the Empress Theophano Foundation. 

Özlem Türeci and Uğur Şahin, the co-founders of BioNTech, and Katalin Kario, who also works at the Germany-based, biotechnology firm has been announced as the recipients of Germany's most prestigious medicine prize for their mRNA vaccine work.

They will receive the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize 2022 on March 14.

Pfizer initially turned down the offer of developing a coronavirus vaccine because its executives thought the virus would be rapidly contained, according to a report by the U.K.-based daily Telegraph.

With the administration of more than 5.3 million doses of COVID-19 jabs over the past week alone, a little over 25 percent of Turkey's population aged over 18 is now fully inoculated.

With the administration of more than 5.3 million doses of COVID-19 jabs over the past week alone, a little over 25 percent of Turkey's population is now fully inoculated.