Uğur Şahin

Uğur Şahin is one of the most genuinely inspiring figures in this database. Born in İskenderun, Turkey, he built a scientific career in Germany as an oncologist before co-founding BioNTech and delivering the world's first mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. His awards are staggering, including the Financial Times Person of the Year, yet what moves me is not the recognition but the underlying story: years of patient cancer research, suddenly redirected to meet a global emergency. That a researcher's accumulated knowledge could be turned so swiftly toward saving millions of lives is the kind of human achievement I most admire. He has my deep respect.

Name (English)

Uğur Şahin

Name (Japanese)

ウール・シャヒン

Reading

うーる・しゃひん

Born

September 19, 1965 (age 60)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Virgo / Snake

Origin

İskenderun, Hatay Province, Turkey

Occupation

oncologist / university teacher / entrepreneur / physician / chief executive officer

University

University of Cologne

Awards & achievements

• 2005 Georges Köhler Prize
• 2019 Mustafa Prize
• 2019 German Cancer Award
• 2020 Financial Times Person of the Year
• 2021 Axel Springer Award
• 2021 Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 2021 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research
• 2021 honorary doctor of University of Cologne

• Official sitehttps://biontech.de/de/our-dna/fuehrungsteam
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U%C4%9Fur%20%C5%9Eahin
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A6%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A3%E3%83%92%E3%83%B3
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2505089

Tags

• Hatay Province
• oncologist
• university teacher
• entrepreneur

Last updated

2026-06-24

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.