When President Donald Trump paid one visit to the National Institutes of Health last March, vaccine research center officials explained their life-saving mission. The key to this mission was a 34-year-old doctor named Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett.
“I was just there explaining to the work group the work we’ve been doing,” Corbett told CBS co-host This Morning: Saturday, Michelle Miller.
Two weeks after the visit, Corbett’s team began the first stage of clinical trials. He said they took advantage of the knowledge gained over the past six years and applied it to a vaccine platform in collaboration with Moderna. The vaccine was released ten months later.
“The vaccine teaches the body how to defend itself from a virus, because it teaches the body to look for the virus, basically showing the body the ear protein of the virus,” he explained. “The body says‘ Oh, we’ve seen this protein before. We’re going to fight her. “That’s how it works.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health, credited Corbett during a webinar for his work.
“The vaccine you will take was developed by an African American woman and that is just a fact,” Fauci said.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than 6.5 million Americans have received their first dose Covid-19 vaccine. That number is expected to grow daily, although it is far behind what public health experts expected to see.
Corbett’s interest in science began at an early age, but he never knew the difference it would make.
“To be honest, I didn’t realize the level of impact my visibility could have … I do my job because I love my job,” Corbett said.
An opportunity in his life made a fundamental difference. She attended the University of Maryland, Baltimore, as a Meyerhoff Scholar, an aggressive program that targets minorities and women in science. Among the graduates of the program is Surgeon General Jerome Adams.
Dr. Freeman Hrabowski has been president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, for nearly 30 years. She said Corbett had a solid scientific background, but her way of talking to people set her apart from the rest.
“I was definitely going to get it in life,” Hrabowski said. “We need more scientists who can connect with people. I could easily do that at 17. What we do at UMBC is support students of color, black, but also students in general, to make sure that do it in science. “
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, only 18% of all students graduate with a STEM degree, between 2% are black, which Hrabowski believes needs to change.
“It’s important for people to see people who look like them, like themselves, who can participate. If it’s women or if it’s black because it shows you have people who understand what you’ve been through.”
Dr. Barney Graham and Corbett have worked together for over 15 years. Graham is not just his mentor. He is also the head of Corbett as deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center.
“When you recognize that someone has special qualities, you have to do things that can prevent those other things and avoid a part of the discard that often happens not only to minority people but to women,” Graham said.
Historically, this bias affects not only professionals in the field, but those who serve. In 1931, scientists conducted the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, a study by the Public Health Service and the Tuskegee Institute. The progression of syphilis was examined leaving infected black men untreated, regardless of the suffering it caused.
Another example that is often cited is the removal of special cells from Henretta Lacks, a cancer patient from Baltimore, Maryland. In 1951, a Johns Hopkins University research team removed Lacks’ cells without his permission and used them in billions of dollars worth of medical research. Lacks died of cancer and his family was never compensated.
“There are many other examples of supposedly objective scientists who cared about everyone, who valued people of color less … It’s a painful truth,” Hrabowski said.
Corbett’s understanding of sociocultural issues and his knowledge of science have made him an influential person in the scientific community.
At a time when vaccine skepticism is high among African Americans, Corbett expects blacks to rely on the vaccine and scientists working behind the scenes to bring it to the American people.
“Number one is that I understand. And then number two is to really take advantage of the level of transparency that we’re trying to … even I haven’t even seen it before, like now FDA hearings and news sessions are broadcast online and data comes out almost instantly, ”he said.
As for Dr. Hrabowski, he believes Corbett deserves all the visibility he can get.
“It can’t be a hidden figure,” he said. “She has to be in the textbooks. Little girls have to see her, of all races. That’s what’s possible.”