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

Gregory Zuckerman is a nonfiction author and special writer at The Wall Street Journal.  Before joining the Journal, Zuckerman was managing editor of Mergers and Acquisitions Reports, a trade publication of Investment Dealers’ Digest, and the New York Post as a media reporter.  

At the Journal, Zuckerman is an investigative reporter covering business and investing topics.  He is a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb Award, the highest honor in business journalism.  He regularly appears on CNBC, Fox News, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg Television, and more.  Zuckerman’s works include The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution, The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters, and his latest book, A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine, covering mRNA vaccine development.  A Shot to Save the World was longlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award.

In this episode, we hit a wide range of topics, starting with how Mr. Zuckerman wrote his book, and his experiences with the characters he writes about. We then discuss public policy and financing, and how the vaccine development process can be critiqued and updated. Finally, we talk about societal perception of science, and how it should change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine development process.

Gregory Zuckerman

Policy Punchline Podcast