Kizzmekia Corbett Developing Coronavirus Vaccine

Now, THIS is some #BlackGirlMagic…

Source: Xinhua News Agency / Getty

Do you know the name, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett? No? Well, you should. Corbett is leading the charge in battling COVID-19. The viral immunologist and research fellow at the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, is the lead scientist who enlisted a team to create a coronavirus vaccine. The changemaker who earned her doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hil has been making her rounds on news networks sharing the status of the forthcoming vaccine ever since she and her team assembled in January.

She recently told CNN that the vaccine could be available in the fall for healthcare workers and spring for the general public.

“We’re targeting fall for emergency use for health care workers and those who might be in constant contact and are at risk for being exposed over and over,” said Dr. Corbett. “For the general population, our target goal is for next spring. Our plan is to have people vaccinated all over the world by next spring. “

Dr. Corbett whose been described as “not your average pocket-protector scientist, recently told Black Enterprise that being able to differentiate her identity as a woman and a professional helps her to stay grounded. She sometimes plays Jeezy in the lab to lift fellow scientist’s spirits and joked that she’d like him and DaBaby to perform for her if she ever wins a Noble Prize.

“If you can unwind and be true to who you are, it helps to reckon with things. My team is responding to the world’s most devastating global pandemic in the last hundred years. And so, there’s something to be said about knowing who you are.”
I am true to who I am, but I understand that there is a level of professionalism that is attached to essentially what is my newfound status as a scientific lead of this coronavirus vaccine.”

Thank you for your work Dr. Corbett!

See more of this astounding scientist below.