As news of the coronavirus broke around the globe, a small group of scientists jumped into action to tackle one of the greatest medical challenges of our time: to create a vaccine against a virus no one had ever seen before, and to do so in record time, during a deadly, global pandemic.

Rooted in rare access during 2020/21 to some of the leading vaccine research teams around the world, this film tells the inspiring story of the unprecedented global quest to develop vaccine candidates in days and weeks instead of years, putting them through the rigorous testing required to prove that they were safe, and that they worked.  From the design challenges of the drugs to the pitfalls of recruitment, the pressure of politics to the logistics of mass manufacturing, we follow a handful of key scientists every step of the way, sharing their heart-breaking setbacks as well as exhilarating triumphs, in an emotional and uplifting insight into this extraordinary scientific endeavour.

In Washington DC - Barney Graham and Kizzmekia Corbett (NIH/Moderna vaccine)

In Beijing - George Gao and Wu Guizhen (China CDC/ Sinopharm vaccine)

In Oxford – Theresa Lambe and Katie Ewer (Oxford/ AstraZeneca vaccine)

In Brisbane – Keith Chappell (UQ vaccine)

In Germany and USA – Ugur Sahin, Kathrin Jansen and Mike McDermott (Pfizer/ BioNTech vaccine)