2020 has been a difficult year for the whole world due to Covid-19. Despite all the sad deaths, economic and educational hardship suffered, one shining example of the human spirit has emerged. Collaboration, rather than nationalism, amongst scientists around the world has led to the production of a vaccine in record time. In the past we have used examples such as the use of SI units, IUPAC and the International Space station to illustrate international-mindedness amongst scientists. Now we can add the development of the PfizerNBiotech vaccine (and others) to our list of examples.

Within days of receiving swabs from patients suffering from Covid-19 Prof. Zhang Yongzhen, Shanghai Public Health Centre in China developed the sequence of the genetic code of the virus and posted it in the public domain for all the world to see and use freely.  BioNTech, a German company, working with Pfizer, the  US pharmaceutical giant, took up the challenge to produce a vaccine with a method that uses mRNA. BioNTech was founded in 2008 by the German scientists and married couple Şahin and Özlem Türeci, as well as the Austrian oncologist Christoph Huber. The vaccine was trialled in the US, Brazil, Argentina and S. Africa and manufactured in Belgium. It was first approved for use by the UK. For their pioneering work Şahin and Özlem Türeci, who are both the children of Turkish immigrants,  have been named Financial Times People of the Year 2020. Several other companies are also working on vaccines. Two produced by Russia (Sputnik V) and China (Sinovac) are already being given to the pubic although they have not yet fully completed their clinical trials. The vaccine produced by Moderna (US) has just been approved for general use in the USA and Canada  and the Oxford/Astrazeneca vaccine also looks set to being approved very soon.