A Shot to Save the World is a group biography of the people and companies who developed or helped lay the groundwork for the COVID vaccines, specifically the mRNA type used by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. Most of the work was done by small companies, large pharma did not see the profit potential. or even viability of mRNA vaccines. The audacious and risky goal was a cure for AIDS or the flu. So when COVID hit (two-thirds into the book), they were best positioned to make a vaccine that could be rapidly replicated at high volume - unlike traditional vaccines - and overnight they went from small companies into billion dollar corporations. No one really knew if it would work, but the epidemiological results were stunning. It's a fairy tale, still playing out, how these small companies went from nothing to literally saving the world. This is the second book by Zuckerman I have read, the first about fracking pioneers. That was a better book, I had a hard time following this one, there are a lot of people, the subject matter can be banal - many advancements were simply lab accidents - and the biotech hard to follow. Still it's interesting learn about the people, most of them were motivated to enter into this risky line of research not for supposed riches but to help save lives. ( )