Germany honors Turkish scientist couple for developing COVID-19 vaccine

Germany's president conferred Turkish scientists Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci with the country's highest award on Friday for inventing the world's first effective vaccine against COVID-19.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier presented the Order of Merit to Şahin and Türeci at a ceremony held at the Bellevue Palace, which was also attended by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"On behalf of our country, I would like to thank you both for your outstanding scientific achievements, and I wish that your further major research plans would bring about similar groundbreaking successes for you and for all of us," Steinmeier said at the ceremony.

He underlined that Şahin and his wife Türeci's pioneering work in the field of mRNA technologies, and their development of the coronavirus vaccine against in less than a year, made a decisive contribution to containing the pandemic.

"Your groundbreaking discovery is saving human lives, it is securing the necessities of life, ensuring our social, economic and cultural survival. With every vaccinated person we can take a small step towards normalization, a step towards the life we miss and the people we love," he said.

The Great Cross with Star of the Order of Merit, which was given to the Turkish-German scientist couple, is one of the country's most prominent honors to pay tribute to the individuals for their great services to the nation.

Both Şahin and Türeci were born to immigrant parents from Turkey who moved to Germany in the 1960s, and after studying medicine at the university, they have built successful careers in the fields of cancer immunology, molecular biology and the mRNA vaccine technology.

The pharmaceutical company BioNTech, which the couple founded in 2008, managed to develop the world's first effective coronavirus vaccine together with its US partner Pfizer.