Prof. Ozlem Tureci, M.D.

Ozlem Tureci is a German physician and immunologist with Turkish roots who trained alongside Ugur Sahin at Saarland University Medical Center. Her clinical experience treating cancer patients directly informed BioNTech's founding mission: she witnessed firsthand how standardized therapies failed because they could not address the genetic uniqueness of each tumor. Tureci's research focus on harnessing the full potential of the immune system led her to explore multiple therapeutic modalities including antibodies, cell therapies, and mRNA, with mRNA emerging as the most advanced platform after two decades of optimization. Her defining founding philosophy was that scientific innovations must reach patients broadly, not remain trapped in academic journals—a conviction that drove the transition from university research to commercial biotechnology.

Prof. Ozlem Tureci, M.D. is the Co-Founder, Chief Medical Officer, and Member of the Management Board of BioNTech SE. A German physician and immunologist with Turkish roots, Tureci trained at Saarland University Medical Center where she met and later married Ugur Sahin in 2002. Her clinical practice in oncology provided the foundational insight for BioNTech's mission: that the genetic heterogeneity of tumors—less than 3% similarity between patients with the same cancer type—was the root cause of treatment failure for standardized therapies. Tureci co-founded BioNTech in 2008 to develop individualized immunotherapies that could address this heterogeneity, initially focusing on mRNA-based cancer vaccines. She has led the clinical development strategy for all BioNTech programs, from the early cancer vaccine trials through the COVID-19 vaccine development and now the oncology pipeline pivot. As Chief Medical Officer, she oversees clinical trial design, regulatory strategy, and medical affairs. Tureci has been instrumental in establishing BioNTech's partnerships with Genentech/Roche, Pfizer, and other global pharmaceutical companies. She has received numerous honors including the German Future Prize (Deutscher Zukunftspreis) in 2021 alongside Sahin for the COVID-19 vaccine development. Tureci's public statements consistently emphasize the goal of translating research into survival for patients worldwide.