Born: 6 March 1967, Germany
Died: NA
Country most active: Germany
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
In 2021, BioNTech co-founder Özlem Türeci credited her company’s gender equity as one reason for the speed at which the first viable vaccine for COVID-19 was created. She also stated that the lack of women in decision-making roles in medicine was “destroying value” for stakeholders. World Health Organization data showed that women make up seventy percent of the global health and care workforce, but only twenty-five percent of decision-making roles. “At BioNTech, women make up 54 percent of our total workforce and 45 percent of top management. We like to think that being a gender-balanced team has been critical to making the seemingly impossible possible—developing a COVID-19 vaccine within 11 months without shortcuts,” Türeci said…
At an event honouring BioNTech founders Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, who are married, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan referred to Türeci as “Ugur Sahin’s wife” rather than by name. In addition to co-founder, Türeci serves as chief medical officer for the company, which produced the first messenger RNA-based vaccine approved for use against COVID-19.