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Gregory Zuckerman
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A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine Kindle Edition

by Gregory Zuckerman (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 477 ratings
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"An inspiring and informative page-turner." –Walter Isaacson

Longlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award
 
The authoritative account of the race to produce the vaccines that are saving us all, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Man Who Solved the Market

Few were ready when a mysterious respiratory illness emerged in Wuhan, China in January 2020. Politicians, government officials, business leaders, and public-health professionals were unprepared for the most devastating pandemic in a century. Many of the world’s biggest drug and vaccine makers were slow to react or couldn’t muster an effective response.
 
It was up to a small group of unlikely and untested scientists and executives to save civilization. A French businessman dismissed by many as a fabulist. A Turkish immigrant with little virus experience. A quirky Midwesterner obsessed with insect cells. A Boston scientist employing questionable techniques. A British scientist despised by his peers. Far from the limelight, each had spent years developing innovative vaccine approaches. Their work was met with skepticism and scorn. By 2020, these individuals had little proof of progress. Yet they and their colleagues wanted to be the ones to stop the virus holding the world hostage. They scrambled to turn their life’s work into life-saving vaccines in a matter of months, each gunning to make the big breakthrough—and to beat each other for the glory that a vaccine guaranteed.
 
A #1 New York Times bestselling author and award-winning Wall Street Journal investigative journalist lauded for his “bravura storytelling” (Gary Shteyngart) and “first-rate” reporting (The New York Times), Zuckerman takes us inside the top-secret laboratories, corporate clashes, and high-stakes government negotiations that led to effective shots. Deeply reported and endlessly gripping, this is a dazzling, blow-by-blow chronicle of the most consequential scientific breakthrough of our time. It’s a story of courage, genius, and heroism. It’s also a tale of heated rivalries, unbridled ambitions, crippling insecurities, and unexpected drama. A Shot to Save the World is the story of how science saved the world.
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    382 pages
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    Portfolio
  5. Publication date
    October 26, 2021
  6. File size
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"One of the most exciting dramas in medical history... A Shot to Save the World is a thrilling account based on great reporting and access to all of the teams. An inspiring and informative page-turner.”
--Walter Isaacson, author of #1 New York Times bestseller, The Code Breaker

"Captivating account...gripping...tough to put down."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“An intensely researched, rewarding account of an impressive medical triumph.”
--Kirkus Reviews

"A page-turning drama...Brings you inside the room of the largest drug makers to give readers a birds-eye view of the big decisions and behind-the-scenes machinations that span from Washington to China."  
--Andrew Ross Sorkin, columnist, The New York Times, co-anchor of CNBC's Squawk Box

"Zuckerman answers a question still circulating among both vaccine fans and skeptics: How could scientists develop the Covid-19 vaccines so quickly? The vaccine-science book for a vaccine skeptic." 
--The New York Times

"A propulsive narrative...the single best book I've read on the real world of scientific entrepreneurship…Highly recommended."
--Paul Kedrosky, Investor and partner at SK Venture

"Cinematic."
--Brian Williams, MSNBC

"An assured account of the research, the ideas and the personalities. Like many great scientific tales, the story features serendipity, failures, tenacity, frustration and temper tantrums."
--Nature

"A Must Read"
--Town & Country

“A superb scientific drama of failure, determination and triumph”
--The Economist, Best Books of 2021

Financial Times, Best Books of 2021, Business

About the Author

Gregory Zuckerman is the author of The Greatest Trade Ever, The Frackers, and The Man Who Solved the Market and is a Special Writer at the Wall Street Journal. At the Journal, Zuckerman writes about financial firms, personalities and trades, as well as hedge funds and other investing and business topics. He's a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb award, the highest honor in business journalism. Zuckerman also appears regularly on CNBC, Fox Business and other networks and radio stations around the globe.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B098RQP754
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Portfolio (October 26, 2021)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 26, 2021
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3583 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 382 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 477 ratings

About the author

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Gregory Zuckerman

Gregory Zuckerman

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Gregory Zuckerman is a Special Writer at The Wall Street Journal. He is an investigative reporter who writes about various investing and business topics.

Greg is the author of A Shot to Save the World: A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine, published by PenguinRandomHouse’s Portfolio division October 2021.

Greg is also the author of The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched a Quant Revolution, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. The book, which is being translated into 17 languages, was shortlisted by the Financial Times/McKinsey and the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing as one of the best business books of 2019.

Greg also is the author of The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters, a national bestseller published October 2014 that describes how several unlikely individuals created an American energy renaissance that has brought OPEC to its knees. The Frackers was named among 2014’s best books by The Financial Times and Forbes Magazine. Previously, Greg wrote The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller published December 2010.

Greg and his two sons wrote Rising Above: How 11 Athletes Overcame Challenges in their Youth to Become Stars and Rising Above-Inspiring Women in Sports, books that are aimed at inspiring young readers with stories of how stars in various sports overcame imposing setbacks in their youth. The books were chosen by Scholastic Teacher magazine as top picks in 2016 and 2017.

Greg is a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb award, the highest honor in business journalism. He won the Loeb Award in 2015 for a series of stories revealing discord between Bill Gross, founder of bond powerhouse Pimco, and others at the firm, stories that led to his departure. In 2012, Greg broke news about huge, disastrous trades by the J.P. Morgan trader nicknamed the “London Whale,” trades that resulted in $6.2 billion losses for the bank.

Greg appears regularly on CNBC, Fox Business and other networks and he makes appearances on radio stations around the globe.

Greg joined the Journal in 1996 after writing about media companies for the New York Post. He graduated from Brandeis University in 1988. Greg lives with his wife and two sons in West Orange, N.J., where they enjoy the New York Yankees in the summer, root for the Giants in the fall, and reminisce about Linsanity in the winter.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
477 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Gary S. Hurd
5.0 out of 5 stars Just read it.
Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2021
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While I am very hesitant about "instant history," Gregory Zuckerman's work is excellent. I particularly enjoyed how he organized the chapters chronologically with the time intervals growing shorter and shorter as the crisis, and responses grew greater and more urgent.

What will surprise many people who are not academic, industrial, or government scientists is how competitive and cooperative we are in a years and decades old cloud of shifting allegiances.

This as much as anything else encouraged me to promote this book as it might help people understand that medical science is not a massive conspiracy scam run by "big pharma" or academics. Also important to see is that the many MBA and JD degree holder executives are truly de greed. And their greed did cost lives.

On technical features, readers without much science background can actually skip most of it and instead focus on the personal narratives excellently presented by Zuckerman.

One problem with instant history is that there are many new events in just the few months following the publication of "The Shot." Just in the last week (Nov. 11 - 18) the US National Institutes of Health are headed to court over SARS-CoV-2 vaccine patents. And I am certain there will be more to come.

Regardless, I do encourage, and recommend reading this excellent piece of writing, and reporting.
5 people found this helpful
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Andy Tannen
5.0 out of 5 stars The Detective Story of the Century
Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2021
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I read it in three days (fast for me), so as others have said, it's a page turner. Most of us have lost friends, relatives or colleagues due to this plague, which seems finally getting under control, mostly due to the mRNA vaccines, the development of which are clearly explained in this fine history of the research process (as are the non-mRNA vaccines).

But, what makes it a great read are the detailed portraits of the researchers, particularly the academic researchers whom I had not heard about via the massive media coverage I have consumed. I found the most fascinating to be Jon Wolff, Katalin Kariko (emigrated to the US from Hungary), Jason McLellan and Nianshuang Wang (yes, a Chinese-born and educated researcher, working in the U.S., played a key role in the vaccine development -- I wonder what our former president would say about that).

The book presents very effective, simple explanations for non-science people like me about critical factors like the difference between the innate and adaptive immune systems and how the challenges of getting the vaccines to work without negative effects were solved over time. A Shot to Save the World is worth your time. If I were a producer, I would have bought the TV rights and have it in production!
13 people found this helpful
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George Eyster VMD
4.0 out of 5 stars What you want to know on how we got the new vaccines.
Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2022
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Interesting story of how the new vaccines got made.
One person found this helpful
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Eugene Katzman
5.0 out of 5 stars A Heroic Book About the Most Currently Important Medical Heroes and Predessors
Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2022
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This novel covers earth shaking technical medical research with explanations that don’t break this neophyte head. I don’t know if it is a low enough level as a five year old but I found it easy to understand without majoring in medicine, biology or chemistry. It gives a feel for the many people involved and their personal problems so that you can sympathize for many of them. The story of the medical approach is fascinating and of major impact on future medical approaches and you can sense the incessant curiosity and dogged dedication that drove them to create this new approach to medical advances. I love this book because it’s also inspirational about what good that human being can strive for.
One person found this helpful
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Meera or, usually, Alex
5.0 out of 5 stars There are a lot of hidden heroes, twists and turns, in the successful creation of the Covid vaccines
Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2022
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There are a lot of hidden heroes, twists and turns, in the successful creation of the Covid vaccines.
This is in-depth journalism and serious investigative history of science very well written.

Among the interesting things that come out in this well written page turner, are these:

#Although a lot of new technology and production methods were ramped up quickly,Contrary to some impressions many people have these vaccines we’re not developed suddenly with totally new technology…
The history of how these were developed Goes back several decades of both basic academic research and If it’s inside the pharmaceutical industry.
# This narrative has Several heroes, a few sort of villains, and a cast of really quirky characters.
# although it the book does not try to make Angels out of everyone in the pharmaceutical industry, it does make clear that several of the researchers and CEOs took great Personal risks to their reputations and finances … and even the company survival… In the determination to get safe effective vaccines out the door as soon as possible.
One person found this helpful
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Buzz Burlock
5.0 out of 5 stars Blistering narrative
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2021
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I couldn’t put this book down! Zuckerman brings deep scientific research alive with compelling human narratives and historical urgency. He places our present battle with COVID into a larger medical landscape encompassing AIDS, Zika, polio, and smallpox, pointing towards an understanding of the virus that chafes against the familiar “unprecedented” narrative. The longtime Wall Street journalist’s industry knowledge is obvious but his prose is inviting. I learned so much from this book and would recommend it to anyone who is still trying to make sense of the last nineteen months- and what they mean for the future.
- Buzz Burlock, Origin Capital Management
4 people found this helpful
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Eddie Shapiro
5.0 out of 5 stars Scientifically fascinating and written like a novel
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2022
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Greg Zuckerman slam-dunked again! A Shot… reads like a suspense novel but gives one a fascinating background into what is probably the most important medical breakthrough in this decade. I’ve enjoyed all Zuckerman’s book and can’t wait for his next one.
2 people found this helpful
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Elizah
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book. Interesting author
Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2023
I liked all the information, lots of names. Interesting subject.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Argo
5.0 out of 5 stars In the genre of a nail biting thriller!
Reviewed in India on January 21, 2022
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A spellbinding account of how the vaccines to the dreadful Covid-19 were made, based on painstaking research done years, even decades earlier. We only know the glory of the pharma companies - this book tells the story behind the scenes - describing the trials and tribulations of several scientists and bio-entrepreneurs , out on a mission to save humanity from death and disease.

Fast paced with a wealth of information making me wish I paid more attention to biology in school, this is an unputdownable novel and a fitting tribute to all those bravehearts in labcoats
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Bernhard K.
5.0 out of 5 stars Sehr interessantes Buch
Reviewed in Germany on January 13, 2022
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Spannend zu lesen
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Stefan Broer
5.0 out of 5 stars Almost like a thriller
Reviewed in Australia on January 8, 2022
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Well written and well researched. It starts much earlier than the pandemic and gives a good background how the different vectors and approaches were developed. The reader gets to know the people involved. Although we know the outcome it is hard to put the book down.
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Loz
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in Australia on January 12, 2022
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Excellent book in a nice hardcover edition. I bought it as a gift for my brother and he really enjoyed it.
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