Summary of Brendan Borrell's The First Shots

By IRB Media

Get the Summary of Brendan Borrell's The First Shots in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: Heroic science. Chaotic politics. Billionaire entrepreneurs. Award-winning journalist Brendan Borrell brings the defining story of our times alive through compulsively readable, first-time reporting on the players leading the fight against a vicious virus. The First Shots, soon to be the subject of an HBO limited series with superstar director and producer Adam McKay (Succession, Vice, The Big Short), draws on exclusive, high-level access to weave together the intense vaccine-race conflicts among hard-driving, heroic scientists and the epic rivalries among Washington power players that shaped 18 months of fear, resolve, and triumph.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781952482731

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

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Insights on Brendan Borrell's The First Shots

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that can cause severe pneumonia. They are spread through close contact with an infected person.

#2

The coronavirus was first identified in April 2014, and it took until January 10, 2020 for the NIH to obtain the genome sequence.

#3

The virus had four genes, and one of those was the spike protein. It started with an ATG, which coded for the amino acid methionine, and continued with three-letter codes for the amino acids phenylalanine, valine, and so on.

#4

In order to create a vaccine, the scientists needed the technology to stabilize the virus particles. The technology to do so already existed, and it was created by the Vaccine Research Center, or VRC.

#5

The NIH scientists were able to generate the first doses of the vaccine, which were sent to the clinical trial site.

#6

The scientists needed to synthesize the spike protein, which was a digital gene sequence that needed to be translated into a piece of DNA.

#7

Nine days after Corbett’s team received the DNA sequences they needed to produce the vaccine, they had the complete vaccine constructs.

#8

By late 2020, the World Economic Forum had moved their annual meeting from Davos, Switzerland to Singapore, due to the severity of the Wuhan flu.

#9

The coronavirus is a very tricky disease to treat because it can mutate and become resistant to the drugs we currently have. One possible solution is to create a vaccine that takes advantage of the body’s ability to make