Uğur Şahin

Uğur Şahin ( Turkish: [uˈuɾ ʃaː.hin]; born 19 September 1965) is a German medical researcher, entrepreneur, and businessman. He is the co-founder and CEO of BioNTech, which developed the world’s first mRNA-based vaccine against COVID-19. He also serves as chairman of the scientific management board of the Helmholtz Institute for Translational Oncology [de] (HI-TRON), a Mainz-based cutting-edge biopharmaceutical research laboratory he co-founded in 2018. He is co-inventor of more than 500 filed patents applications and patents. His main fields of research are cancer research and immunology.

Şahin's family, originally from Turkey, moved to Germany when he was four years old. He grew up in Cologne and studied medicine at the University of Cologne, completing a doctoral thesis there in cancer immunotherapy. He initially remained in academia, in patient care as an oncohematology physician and conducting research at university hospitals in Saarland and Zürich. He founded a research group at the University of Mainz in 2000 and became a professor of experimental oncology in 2006.