Özlem Türeci calls for curiosity and rigour to contribute to science
PRESS RELEASE
- The new honorary doctor helped develop a COVID-19 vaccine and has promoted a revolutionary technology to treat various types of tumours.
“mRNA is the most primal information technology created by nature. It can be manufactured synthetically by a relatively simple and versatile process, and it is safe and programmable”, highlighted doctor Özlem Türeci, an expert in cancer immunotherapy and a driving force behind a COVID-19 vaccine based on messenger RNA, during the ceremony in which she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Barcelona. The ceremony, which was streamed online via UBtv, was presided over by the rector of the UB, Joan Guàrdia. Türeci’s sponsors were UB professors Antoni Trilla, dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Pedro Alonso, former director of the World Health Organization’s Global Malaria Programme.
“mRNA is the most primal information technology created by nature. It can be manufactured synthetically by a relatively simple and versatile process, and it is safe and programmable”, highlighted doctor Özlem Türeci, an expert in cancer immunotherapy and a driving force behind a COVID-19 vaccine based on messenger RNA, during the ceremony in which she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Barcelona. The ceremony, which was streamed online via UBtv, was presided over by the rector of the UB, Joan Guàrdia. Türeci’s sponsors were UB professors Antoni Trilla, dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Pedro Alonso, former director of the World Health Organization’s Global Malaria Programme.
The ceremony, which honoured Özlem Türeci’s scientific excellence in global public health, included the presentation of the extraordinary bachelor’s degree awards for the 2023 – 2024 academic year.
Özlem Türeci, born in Siegen (Germany) to a family of Turkish origin, played a key role in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. A professor of personalized medicine at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and at the Helmholtz Institute for Translational Oncology Mainz (HI-TRON), Türeci has received the 2021 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, the 2020 International Catalonia Prize, the 2021 Medal of Honor from the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (United States), and the Knight Commander’s Cross of the Order of the Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Each patient has a unique cancer
An expert in mRNA-based cancer immunotherapies — “we were fascinated by the immune system and its complexity” — Türeci recalled that her career “began at the patient’s bedside.” “Each patient has a unique cancer” she emphasized. “If we wanted to make a real impact on patients’ lives, we shouldn’t be not only physicians who understand patients’ needs, not only immunologists with deep domain expertise, but also entrepreneurs and company founders able to create the funding structures, and environment necessary to translate science into medicines that reach patients.”
The recently appointed honorary doctor recalled that, in its natural form, “mRNA is fragile, its half-life is short, the message fades and, with it, so do the antigens produced,” a condition that made it necessary to “learn to modify parts of the mRNA so it would become more stable, more readable, and more productive, by orders of magnitude.” “We recognized mRNA’s potential,” she said, “but we also knew that significant improvements were needed to make it suitable for therapeutic or preventive use”.
Among other challenges, it was necessary to develop high-precision delivery technologies that protect the mRNA and bring it to the immune cells that matter the most, while taking into account each patient’s individuality. “Each patient’s cancer presents a different combination of mutations and abnormal molecular features. Addressing this required the convergence of technologies”.
By late 2019, Türeci’s team had provided individualized vaccines in clinical-study phases to hundreds of cancer patients worldwide. “Each time, it was a race against the patient’s tumour, and this trained our teams to think with urgency.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in January 2020, they were scientifically, technologically and organizationally prepared for an initiative that came to be known as Project Lightspeed. “We felt the responsibility to put our capabilities into use in addressing this global crisis,” she said.
“Within 10 months, while following scientific, ethical, and regulatory standards, the first approved mRNA-based medicine emerged,” she noted. “Much of what we learned now supports our cancer programmes, not only those based on mRNA technology.”
A COVID-19 vaccine based on messenger RNA
Professor Antoni Trilla, speaking on behalf of both sponsors, described Türeci as “one of the most influential scientists of the 21st century, who represents the values that the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences seeks to honour: scientific rigour, meritocracy, innovation oriented towards the common good, humility and social responsibility, and the ability to turn knowledge into progress for humanity.”
“Her work opened, and continues to open, new paths for cancer treatment. It is precision medicine,” Trilla noted, recalling Türeci’s early interest in studying tumour neoantigens, “protein fragments that appear only in cancer cells and make it possible to design highly specific treatments.” In the 1990s, she began working on technological platforms that, “years later, became essential for messenger RNA vaccines.”
Trilla highlighted Türeci’s research to develop personalized cancer vaccines and therapies at BioNTech, the company she co-founded with expert Uğur Şahin. This line of precision medicine work proved decisive in confronting a global public health emergency: the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.
In record time — less than a year — Türeci and Şahin launched Project Lightspeed to develop a messenger RNA vaccine against COVID-19: the BNT162b2 vaccine, later developed in partnership with Pfizer. Trilla described it as “a truly extraordinary scientific breakthrough” that drastically reduced hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and COVID-19 mortality. “In Europe, these vaccines are estimated to have prevented more than 1.5 million deaths. It was a turning point for research, industry, and international collaboration.”
“Professor Türeci is someone capable of transforming a research laboratory into a space of hope, and a scientific discovery into a better future for everyone,” Trilla said. “Her work reminds us that science is not only a realm of intelligence but also a space of ethical commitment and service to society.”
Trilla also highlighted a new achievement of mRNA’s revolutionary technology: a few weeks ago, Türeci’s team published in Nature the encouraging results of a BioNTech messenger-RNA vaccine against triple-negative breast cancer. At the same time, he recalled the real risks threatening science today, such as the impact of political decisions in the United States on research funding and the crisis of the confidence in vaccination — “a context that Europe can seize to strengthen its leadership in research and global health, while also attracting scientific talent.”
Before concluding, Trilla urged young scientists to stand up for science — “stand up for science” — to fight against misinformation — “one of the greatest threads” — and to defend scientific institutions and an honest, open dialogue between science and society. “In medicine and public health, false science causes real harm, such as rejecting vaccines and medical treatments based on scientific evidence or promoting so-called ‘miracle cancer cures’ with no scientific basis.”
A recognition for the future doctors Türeci
When closing the ceremony, Rector Joan Guàrdia stated that “today it is easy to grasp the meaning that all academic ceremonies hold.” He said that these events “share a simple idea: the notion of talent and excellence.” In the case of this ceremony, “it is a recognition of the talent both of someone with an extraordinary scientific career and of the future doctors Türeci.”
Guàrdia also recalled the value of the UB as “a resilient institution, with a long history and a solid project for the future.” “We are living in turbulent times,” the rector noted, sharing the concern expressed in earlier speeches about how we reached “this point in which science is being denied.” In this context of challenges and change, he reminded the audience that “we live from the commitment to teach.”
After the honorary degree ceremony, the extraordinary bachelor’s degree awards were presented, and the UB Choir closed the event with its Gaudeamus igitur.
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