The Vaccine Race

Download or read book The Vaccine Race written by Meredith Wadman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A real jewel of science history...brims with suspense and now-forgotten catastrophe and intrigue...Wadman’s smooth prose calmly spins a surpassingly complicated story into a real tour de force."—The New York Times “Riveting . . . [The Vaccine Race] invites comparison with Rebecca Skloot's 2007 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.”—Nature The epic and controversial story of a major breakthrough in cell biology that led to the conquest of rubella and other devastating diseases. Until the late 1960s, tens of thousands of American children suffered crippling birth defects if their mothers had been exposed to rubella, popularly known as German measles, while pregnant; there was no vaccine and little understanding of how the disease devastated fetuses. In June 1962, a young biologist in Philadelphia, using tissue extracted from an aborted fetus from Sweden, produced safe, clean cells that allowed the creation of vaccines against rubella and other common childhood diseases. Two years later, in the midst of a devastating German measles epidemic, his colleague developed the vaccine that would one day wipe out homegrown rubella. The rubella vaccine and others made with those fetal cells have protected more than 150 million people in the United States, the vast majority of them preschoolers. The new cells and the method of making them also led to vaccines that have protected billions of people around the world from polio, rabies, chicken pox, measles, hepatitis A, shingles and adenovirus. Meredith Wadman’s masterful account recovers not only the science of this urgent race, but also the political roadblocks that nearly stopped the scientists. She describes the terrible dilemmas of pregnant women exposed to German measles and recounts testing on infants, prisoners, orphans, and the intellectually disabled, which was common in the era. These events take place at the dawn of the battle over using human fetal tissue in research, during the arrival of big commerce in campus labs, and as huge changes take place in the laws and practices governing who “owns” research cells and the profits made from biological inventions. It is also the story of yet one more unrecognized woman whose cells have been used to save countless lives. With another frightening virus--measles--on the rise today, no medical story could have more human drama, impact, or urgency than The Vaccine Race.

Download or read book The Vaccine written by Joe Miller and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winners of the Paul Ehrlich Prize The dramatic story of the married scientists who founded BioNTech and developed the first vaccine against COVID-19. Nobody thought it was possible. In mid-January 2020, Ugur Sahin told Özlem Türeci, his wife and decades-long research partner, that a vaccine against what would soon be known as COVID-19 could be developed and safely injected into the arms of millions before the end of the year. His confidence was built upon almost thirty years of research. While working to revolutionize the way that cancerous tumors are treated, the couple had explored a volatile and overlooked molecule called messenger RNA; they believed it could be harnessed to redirect the immune system's forces against any number of diseases. As the founders of BioNTech, they faced widespread skepticism from the scientific community at first; but by the time Sars-Cov-2 was discovered in Wuhan, China, BioNTech was prepared to deploy cutting edge technology and create the world’s first clinically approved inoculation for the coronavirus. The Vaccine draws back the curtain on one of the most important medical breakthroughs of our age; it will reveal how Doctors Sahin and Türeci were able to develop twenty vaccine candidates within weeks, convince Big Pharma to support their ambitious project, navigate political interference from the Trump administration and the European Union, and provide more than three billion doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to countries around the world in record time. Written by Joe Miller—the Financial Times’ Frankfurt correspondent who covered BioNTech’s COVID-19 project in real time—with contributions from Sahin and Türeci, as well as interviews with more than sixty scientists, politicians, public health officials, and BioNTech staff, the book covers key events throughout the extraordinary year, as well as exploring the scientific, economic, and personal background of each medical innovation. Crafted to be both completely accessible to the average reader and filled with details that will fascinate seasoned microbiologists, The Vaccine explains the science behind the breakthrough, at a time when public confidence in vaccine safety and efficacy is crucial to bringing an end to this pandemic.

Download or read book A Shot to Save the World written by Gregory Zuckerman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An inspiring and informative page-turner." –Walter Isaacson Longlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award The authoritative account of the race to produce the vaccines that are saving us all, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Man Who Solved the Market Few were ready when a mysterious respiratory illness emerged in Wuhan, China in January 2020. Politicians, government officials, business leaders, and public-health professionals were unprepared for the most devastating pandemic in a century. Many of the world’s biggest drug and vaccine makers were slow to react or couldn’t muster an effective response. It was up to a small group of unlikely and untested scientists and executives to save civilization. A French businessman dismissed by many as a fabulist. A Turkish immigrant with little virus experience. A quirky Midwesterner obsessed with insect cells. A Boston scientist employing questionable techniques. A British scientist despised by his peers. Far from the limelight, each had spent years developing innovative vaccine approaches. Their work was met with skepticism and scorn. By 2020, these individuals had little proof of progress. Yet they and their colleagues wanted to be the ones to stop the virus holding the world hostage. They scrambled to turn their life’s work into life-saving vaccines in a matter of months, each gunning to make the big breakthrough—and to beat each other for the glory that a vaccine guaranteed. A #1 New York Times bestselling author and award-winning Wall Street Journal investigative journalist lauded for his “bravura storytelling” (Gary Shteyngart) and “first-rate” reporting (The New York Times), Zuckerman takes us inside the top-secret laboratories, corporate clashes, and high-stakes government negotiations that led to effective shots. Deeply reported and endlessly gripping, this is a dazzling, blow-by-blow chronicle of the most consequential scientific breakthrough of our time. It’s a story of courage, genius, and heroism. It’s also a tale of heated rivalries, unbridled ambitions, crippling insecurities, and unexpected drama. A Shot to Save the World is the story of how science saved the world.

Download or read book Longshot written by David Heath and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the incredible story of the scientists who created a coronavirus vaccine in record time. In Longshot, investigative journalist David Heath takes readers inside the small group of scientists whose groundbreaking work was once largely dismissed but whose feat will now eclipse the importance of Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine in medical history. With never-before-reported details, Heath reveals how these scientists overcame countless obstacles to give the world an unprecedented head start when we needed a COVID-19 vaccine. The story really begins in the 1990s, with a series of discoveries that were timed perfectly to prepare us for the worst pandemic since 1918. Readers will meet Katalin Karikó, who made it possible to use messenger RNA in vaccines but struggled for years just to hang on to her job. There’s also Derrick Rossi, who leveraged Karikó’s work to found Moderna but was eventually expelled from his company. And then there’s Barney Graham at the National Institutes of Health, who had a career-long obsession with solving the riddle of why two toddlers died in a vaccine trial in 1966, a tragedy that ultimately led to a critical breakthrough in vaccine science. With both foresight and luck, Graham and these other crucial scientists set the course for a coronavirus vaccine years before COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan, China. The author draws on hundreds of hours of interviews with key players to tell the definitive story about how the race to create the vaccine sparked a revolution in medical science.

Download or read book Vaxxers written by Sarah Gilbert and published by . This book was released on 2021-07-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'An enthralling tale of toil, tenacity and triumph' RACHEL CLARKE This is the story of a race - not against other vaccines or other scientists, but against a deadly and devastating virus. On 1 January 2020, Sarah Gilbert, Professor of Vaccinology at Oxford University, read an article about four people in China with a strange pneumonia. Within two weeks, she and her team had designed a vaccine against a pathogen that no one had ever seen before. Less than 12 months later, vaccination was rolled out across the world to save millions of lives from Covid-19. In Vaxxers, we hear directly from Professor Gilbert and her colleague Dr Catherine Green as they reveal the inside story of making the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine and the cutting-edge science and sheer hard work behind it. This is their story of fighting a pandemic as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Sarah and Cath share the heart-stopping moments in the eye of the storm; they separate fact from fiction; they explain how they made a highly effective vaccine in record time with the eyes of the world watching; and they give us hope for the future. Vaxxers invites us into the lab to find out how science will save us from this pandemic, and how we can prepare for the inevitable next one.

Download or read book COVID-19 written by Dr Michael Mosley and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the most essential and comprehensive information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, how to ward off infection, and safeguard your mental and physical health during isolation—from the award-winning science journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fast 800 and The FastDiet. Dr. Michael Mosley has experienced the effects of coronavirus firsthand, as he and both his sons—medical professionals in their twenties—all became ill during the height of the pandemic in London. Now recovered, Dr. Mosley shares his insights and explains the science behind the greatest public health crisis of our time. From the emergence of the novel virus in China at the end of 2019 to its rapid worldwide spread, this clear, detailed guide provides you with a basic understanding of the virus, how it jumps from person to person, how it can be overcome, and the most effective ways to protect yourself and your family. Featuring in-depth interviews with leading doctors and virus researchers working on the front lines to defeat this microscopic enemy, COVID-19 also tracks the ongoing developments in finding new treatments and an effective vaccine—the only way to ultimately halt the spread of the virus. Offering highly readable, easy-to-digest information about this global pandemic, Dr. Mosley’s COVID-19 is the ultimate resource to help you feel better informed and take care of yourself as we all work through this global crisis.

Download or read book Between Hope and Fear written by Michael Kinch and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-07-03 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you have a child in school, you may have heard stories of long-dormant diseases suddenly reappearing—cases of measles, mumps, rubella, and whooping cough cropping up everywhere from elementary schools to Ivy League universities because a select group of parents refuse to vaccinate their children. Between Hope and Fear tells the remarkable story of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases and their social and political implications. While detailing the history of vaccine invention, Kinch reveals the ominous reality that our victories against vaccine-preventable diseases are not permanent—and could easily be undone. In the tradition of John Barry’s The Great Influenza and Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies, Between Hope and Fear relates the remarkable intersection of science, technology, and disease that has helped eradicate many of the deadliest plagues known to man.