Turkish-German couple wins Spanish award for Covid-19 vaccine work

Two Turkish-German doctors who developed a coronavirus vaccine won a prestigious Spanish award on Wednesday for their contribution to science.

Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, a married couple, were among seven people who won the Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, given every year for contributions to the sciences. All seven of the winners were given the award for their contributions to the development of coronavirus vaccines. Each award came with a €50,000 prize.

"It is an honour to be among the recipients of the Princess of Asturias award," Tureci said of her win. "I am deeply humbled to be considered a worthy ambassador for the cause this award represents: The improvement of life as the worthiest goal of science."

Sahin said the award "is a wonderful recognition that science can make a difference for humanity".

"I am very grateful that we have been able to contribute to the fight against this pandemic and help so many people with our research and work."

#NewsUpdate: Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman, Philip Felgner, Uğur Şahin, Özlem Türeci, Derrick Rossi y Sarah Gilbert have been granted the 2021 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research.#PrincessAsturiasAwards pic.twitter.com/QhnlvnFSis

— Fundación Princesa de Asturias (@fpa) June 23, 2021

Both Sahin and Tureci were born to immigrant parents from Turkey who moved to Germany in the 1960s. Tureci was born in Germany, while Sahin arrived in the country when he was four years old.

After studying medicine at university, they built successful careers in the fields of cancer immunology, molecular biology, and the mRNA vaccine technology.

They founded the pharmaceutical company BioNTech in 2008, which in partnership with the US drug multinational Pfizer last November announced a Covid-19 vaccine that used mRNA technology, with around 95 percent efficacy.

The Pfizer-BioTech vaccine is among the most widely used coronavirus vaccines. More than 2.7 billion coronavirus vaccine doses have been given worldwide, according to a University of Oxford dataset. 

Earlier this year, the two were awarded the Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.