51³Ô¹ÏÍø

BERLIN, GERMANY - RECENT: Two Turkish-German scientists will receive the most prestigious medicine award in Germany over achievements in the use of mRNA for preventive and therapeutic purposes, announced on Tuesday (Sept. 21).Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, Turkish descent cofounders of the German company BioNTech, were among the scientists to win the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize 2022."Ugur Sahin, Ozlem Tureci, and Katalin Kariko are awarded the Paul Ehrlich- and Ludwig Darmstaedter-Preis 2022 for their vision and perseverance in the development of RNA as a therapeutic principle," said Thomas Boehm, chairman of the Paul Ehrlich Foundation.The statement by the public relations of the foundation also said the prizes will be "awarded - together with the prizes of the year 2021 - on 14 March 2022 at 5 pm CET by the Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Paul Ehrlich Foundation in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt."The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize is Germany’s most renowned medical award, endowed with 120,000 euros, said the foundation's website.On March 19, the couple have been awarded high honors for contributing to the "containment of the coronavirus pandemic."German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier presented the Knight Commander's Cross of the Federal Order of Merit to both.Sahin and Tureci are a husband-and-wife team who surprised the world when they announced that the vaccine they developed together with US pharmaceutical company Pfizer was more than 90% effective at preventing COVID-19.Theirs was the first vaccine released, faster than many had predicted, and it relied on cutting-edge mRNA technology that Sahin and Tureci had championed.(Footage by Cuneyt Karadag/Abdulhamit Hosbas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)