Meet Kizzmekia Corbett, The Immunologist Whose Team Developed Moderna's COVID Vaccine

Kizzmekia Corbett is a 34-years-old immunologist who is part of the NIH team that worked alongside Moderna to create their highly effective vaccine for COVID-19. Corbett joined the NIH’s Vaccine Research Center as a postdoctoral fellow in 2014.

Here's everything you should know about her

1. She was born on January 26, 1986.
2. Dr Kizzmekia Corbett is an African-American viral immunologist at the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
3. She was a crucial part of the team that worked with the biotechnology company Moderna for two COVID-19 vaccines.
4. As a student, she was selected to participate in Project SEED. It was a program run for gifted minority students that made her possible to study chemistry in labs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
5. After graduating, she enrolled herself in a doctorate program at UNC-Chapel Hill. There, she worked as a research assistant studying virus infections. Eventually, she received a PhD in microbiology and immunology. “The reason that I started to work in coronavirus was not to ever develop a vaccine, but really to have such a strong understanding in vaccine immune response that we could potentially develop one,” she said.
6. Her years of research were put to test when the COVID-19 Pandemic hit the world. Her work was praised by Dr. Anthony Fauci.
7. Her work on Moderna's vaccine involved fabricating a protein that, in her words, "tricks the human immune system" into blocking the infection and disease caused by the coronavirus.
8. Corbett was highlighted in the Time's " Time100 Next " list under the category of Innovators in February 2021.
9. In an interview, she mentioned that she is trying hard to convince sceptics that the vaccine is safe.
   
10. In a bid to recognise the work she has done on the vaccine, January 12, 2021 was named as "Dr. Kizzy Corbett Day"
11. She first made headlines as part of a team of scientists who spoke with President Donald Trump at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

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