Women's Watch: How women researchers led vaccine development through crisis

There are many outstanding research teams worldwide responsible for the development of the vaccines, but two heroines stand out among them — Dr. Kizzmekia S. Corbett led the Moderna team and Dr. Kathrin Jansen led the Pfizer team. Both are heroes in their contributions to fighting the raging viral disease that has now mutated into yet another variation of COVID-19 called the Delta variant.

Prior to the pandemic, 34-year-old Corbett was part of a team at the National Institutes of Health, whose research on other coronaviruses laid the foundation for the design of the COVID-19 vaccine. These early efforts were pivotal to the unprecedented speed, so Moderna was able to come up with a vaccine for COVID-19.

Both the scientist and the science behind messenger RNA vaccines were a long time coming. Before being thrust into the spotlight by the COVID-19 pandemic, Corbett, a senior research fellow in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ vaccine development unit, focused on viral diseases, including the MERS virus.

These early research efforts were pivotal to the speed with which the COVID-19 vaccine was developed.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Corbett’s team partnered with Massachusetts-based biotech company Moderna, to transfer their discoveries about the MERS vaccine to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. While the mRNA system was yet untested in humans, it offered huge advantages for rapid development and gene fragments to be easily reshaped to target new viral variants and other viruses.

Corbett has taken on a prominent role as a vaccine educator now. She works to bridge the gap between vaccine science and public understanding by explaining the science to address people’s concerns.

“For a long time, we left the general public on the outside of vaccine development,” Corbett said. “Until it was time to give them shots, and that’s just unacceptable. I can’t even blame anyone for being skeptical about this, because they can’t have any idea what went into it.” To get the word out, she often virtually meets with church and school groups, engages with news media, and environmental groups.

Jansen, another research leader, is the 63-year-old head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer who led a team of more than 700 researchers to create a vaccine in months instead of the more common 10 to 15 years. While the early days of vaccine science were dominated by male researchers, women like Corbett and Jansen are now on the front lines in the quest to end the global pandemic.

To test efficacy, Jansen and Pfizer worked with their own 30,000-patient study. Pfizer and Moderna were the first companies to launch large clinical trials to prove their vaccine’s efficacy on the same day. Jansen led a 650-person team to work on the mRNA virus strains.

Like their rivals, Pfizer and BioTech are conducting their 30,000-patient study based on guidance from the Food and Drug Administration that aims to be absolutely certain the new vaccine is safe. Researchers have built into the studies, here too, “interim analyses” which monitors data as people develop Covid-19.

Finally, Lauren Gardner, associate professor at Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, is the creator of the Interactive web-based dashboard being used to disseminate information between scientists, the public and health authorities around the entire globe in order to track outbreaks of the virus and share research information.

Gardner was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2020 for “democratizing data” and filling “a void of public health leadership” during the pandemic. She and her team have been featured in a number of top-tier media outlets since March 2020. A specialist in the role of mobility in spreading diseases, Gardner’s research expertise is in integrated transport and epidemiological modeling.

Now that the COVID-19 virus has found human “hosts” in which to replicate and mutate, we are again battling the virus. Fortunately, now we have research and knowledge that can save us. We know that just as doctors and nurses wear masks during surgery to stop the spread of germs in the operating room, masks stop the spread of COVID diseases.

And even more importantly, we now have vaccines that stop people from getting COVID-19, as well as to keep those who get the mutant Delta virus from winding up in a hospital or morgue. You may get sick, but the vaccines will keep you out of the hospital or morgue, unless enough people remain unvaccinated “hosts” for the virus to mutate yet again, and get even stronger and more deadly.

Editor's note: This article was written by Lorie Lux for Women’s Watch, a cooperative writing effort of the local chapters of the American Association of University Women, the League of Women Voters and the National Organization for Women.