'Thrilling, inspiring and informative page-turner.' Walter Isaacson, author of The Code Breaker
You know what went wrong.
This is the untold story of what went right.
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 resented by his peers. Far from the limelight, each had spent years developing innovative vaccine approaches. Their work was met with scepticism and scorn. By 2020, these individuals had little proof of progress. Yet they and their colleagues wanted to be the ones to stop a virulent 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 number-one New York Times bestselling author and award-winning Wall Street Journal investigative journalist, 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.
***LONGLISTED FOR THE FT MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021***
A Shot to Save the World
The Remarkable Race and Ground-Breaking Science Behind the Covid-19 Vaccines
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
October 28, 2021 -
Formats
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780241993446
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780241993446
- File size: 682 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from November 1, 2021
Wall Street Journal reporter Zuckerman traces the seemingly miraculous development of the Covid vaccine in this captivating account (after The Man Who Solved the Market). Through interviews with "scientists, academics, executives, government officials, investors, and others," Zuckerman makes a case that the creation of the vaccine was the result of "years of dedication, creativity, and frustration." He introduces a slew of scientists past and present whose work, in one way or another, impacted the efforts to cure Covid: there's Gale Smith, a molecular biologist who "theorized that insect viruses could be used to infect insect cells to produce specific proteins" in the 1980s; Frank Volvovitz, who started a company called MicroGeneSys to pursue a vaccine for AIDS; Jon Wolff, who was a key player in mRNA research; and Moderna scientist Eric Huang, who advised the company that they should be "making vaccines, not drugs" in 2013. Things move at a fast clip as Zuckerman conveys decades of complex scientific research in a gripping fashion. His focus on the slow burn of discovery makes for a fascinating angle and offers plenty of inspiration: "The Covid-19 vaccine story is one of heroism, dedication, and remarkable persistence." The result is tough to put down.
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