COVID-19 Three Years Later: How A Vaccine Was Created

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Three years ago, as the World Health Organization was preparing to declare COVID-19 a pandemic, scientists were already weeks into developing a vaccine. Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett was part of a groundbreaking team to produce the mRNA vaccine for Moderna. And she is joining Walter Isaacson to reflect on the early days of the pandemic and the future of vaccine research.

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WALTER ISAACSON, HOST: Thank you, Christiane. And Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, welcome to the show.

DR. KIZZMEKIA CORBETT, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, IMMUNOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND HARVARD CHAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Thank you so much.

ISAACSON: So, I think it was probably New Year’s Eve, right before this virus started spreading in early 2020, when you’ve got a call or an e-mail saying, hey, we got to be aware of this thing that might be happening in China. Tell me how you sprang into action in January and February of 2020.

DR. CORBETT: It was actually an e-mail, December 31, 2019, from my then boss, Dr. Barney Graham. And I think that the news article just said that 27 people had become sick in Wuhan, China from a supposed respiratory illness. And so, we had no idea that it was a coronavirus. But what we did know is that if it were a coronavirus, we had something that might be of help in — by way of this type of vaccine technology. And so, I left my mom’s house in North Carolina and I drove back to Bethesda and we essentially just got to work.

ISAACSON: And how did you get to work? I know the Chinese eventually published sort of the coding, let us say, of the coronavirus and the spike protein? What did you do once you found that coding?

DR. CORBETT: Right. So, they published the sequence of the coronavirus, I believe it was January 10, 2020. And at that point, what you can do is you can look at the sequence and you can say, oh, look, here is the piece of the virus that is the spike protein. Let us use that piece of the virus, that spike protein, and add the mutations that are necessary to make it stable and serve that spike protein sequence inside of a messenger RNA. Wrap it into a lipid (ph) and delivered it to people as a vaccine. And that’s what we did.

ISAACSON: The mRNA serves as a messenger, it goes into your cell and says, build protein. That is what mRNA does, done for about a few million years, I would guess, right?

DR. CORBETT: Yes.

ISAACSON: And — but you tell it to build a spike protein. Why?

DR. CORBETT: Because the spike protein, if you think — see my hand here? If this hand is a virus and this is the inside of the virus, these fingers are spike proteins, and they are the things that go and grab on to your cells inside of your body. So, if you want to block an infection or if you want to impede an infection or slow down an infection, you want to teach your body how to recognize those fingers. And so, all you have to do is say, look, cells, this is what the spike protein looks like. And that’s basically what the mRNA does, it teaches your cells how to make that spike protein and then, teaches your — and then, it makes antibodies to enable to block that spike protein.

ISAACSON: And you’ve been an expert at spike proteins and how mRNA can create them. Tell me how you worked with the people at Moderna, other places, when you were at the NIH, to make the exact vaccine that they were using.

DR. CORBETT: Tons of people were involved, actually. I was at the National Institute of Health, as you said. Researchers at the University of Texas Austin were involved in engineering the S2P portion of the spike protein. Over the years we worked with researchers at the UNC Chapel Hill. Obviously, we worked with Moderna, which is a company that has this proprietary messenger RNA platform. So, what happened when this pandemic began is that we all came together and we said, we have to do something because we have been studying this for too long and we know exactly what to do. So, we all got our brains together and — at the NIH and Moderna, we said, we are going to make a vaccine that includes that spike protein in the mRNA platform, because it would be able to make a good immune response, as we’ve been showing in MICE over the years, and it would be fast to be able to manufacture because Moderna is really good at making this type of vaccine.

ISAACSON: Another great woman pioneer in this biotechnology was Katalin Kariko who helped come up with the concept of how the mRNA could work in human cell, along with a lot of other people. Explain how you built on her work.

DR. CORBETT: Right. So, the work that she did over — really, an entire career, when she was at, I believe, the University of Pennsylvania, she did work that basically showed how we might be able to use messenger RNA in the body and allow it to hide from the body so that you could present a protein like the spike protein to the body and get a really good immune response. And so, that work they pioneered over UPenn over the course of even 20 years, and especially in the last decade, prior to the pandemic, that really allowed for us to build on. And that’s one thing about science is that there’s never one isolated aha moment. Everybody’s work across the globe comes together when it’s important like this, something like a pandemic. So, we are able to build off of each other’s knowledge.

ISAACSON: And it was really in record time that the vaccine was developed, right?

DR. CORBETT: I think 66 days. This particular vaccine went into clinical trial following the release of that sequence.

ISAACSON: Tell me what it was like for you having helped develop this vaccine when you first got to take the vaccine.

DR. CORBETT: Oh, man. Wow. I haven’t been asked that question in a very long time. But it was a very emotional moment I think for me and so many other people. I took my vaccine at the NIH, in the clinical center, and I just remember feeling relief and hopeful again. And it was also one of those times where I hadn’t seen as many people as that were lined up to get their vaccines. And so, I was also not feeling as isolated or lonely in that moment. And it just — yes. I can’t even describe how thankful I was for that vaccine.

ISAACSON: I know you don’t really get involved in the politics of things, but there has been such politicization of this vaccine. Do you think scientists could have and can do a better job of explaining science to the public and be more open in the way they explain it?

DR. CORBETT: I absolutely do. I think we are all learning. I think many scientists, including myself, we’re kind of thrust into the media in this moment. We became a voice for our work in a way that’s really different than how we are normally speaking. Generally, I am speaking to faculty or students at, you know, universities like the one that I work. But having to speak to the community and having to understand and listen also, even more over to the community, is a skill that we are all still learning. And so, I think with practice, we will all get there. I also think it wouldn’t hurt for us to not only talk to the community but to continue to talk to and remind politicians about our data as well on an ongoing basis as well. It’s all about keeping the lines of communication open.

ISAACSON: And what would you like to communicate now, now that this — we are sort of getting into the new phase, we are about to get out of the emergency phase of COVID, what do you think scientists should be communicating about the need for virus vaccinations in the future?

DR. CORBETT: I think the one thing that I’d really like to see moving forward is that we keep the conversation around vaccine education and how vaccines can really help health outcomes open, right? It’s not just the COVID-19 vaccine, every single year we have, you know, seasonal influenza shots, there is an entire portfolio of infant vaccinations. You know, I just took my Tdap booster, for example, the other day. So, there’s always a vaccine that people need to know about and keeping those – – the lines of communication open around them, also letting people know about vaccines that might be on the horizon before they come out is also very important, you know. In this moment, people were learning about a vaccine technology being developed kind of in their face. And so, I think it allowed people to make real-time decisions about whether they chose to get the vaccine or not. And I think that that’s really important. Waking up one day and being called by your doctor and saying, oh, now we have an RSV vaccine, would you like to take it? I think that is the wrong way to go about it. We need to be informing people in real-time, all the time, about the science.

ISAACSON: So, what vaccines should we be looking forward to? You’ve mentioned RSV.

DR. CORBETT: RSV. I am really excited about it. I’m excited about it because a lot of the work that went into developing that vaccine actually came from the laboratory and my collaborators and Dr. Barney Graham, Jason McLellan. And that work actually really was a step stool to the work that we did with coronaviruses. And so, I really trust and wholeheartedly believe in that technology. So, RSV. I think probably sooner than later, we will have a new and improved flu vaccines that will start to come out. Oh, man. There’s tons of vaccines in the pipeline.

ISAACSON: You’ve been involved in clinical trials, I was part of a clinical trial for the mRNA vaccine myself.

DR. CORBETT: Oh really? Thank you.

ISAACSON: And it was sort of fun. It felt like you are contributing to society a bit.

DR. CORBETT: Yes.

ISAACSON: Can you tell people why they should maybe volunteer to be part of the clinical trials?

DR. CORBETT: So, you know, I actually don’t like to tell people that they should volunteer or not volunteer for a clinical trial. But what I do like to say to people is that, the participation in clinical trials is always, always something that is available to you. If you find yourself wanting to give back, really interested in new medical technologies or new medicines, if you find yourself really connected to a particular disease, you can go to clinicaltrials.gov and you can search that disease, you can search that medical ailment, you can search that medicine. And most likely, there is a clinical trial site near you and you can participate. And it is a great way to give back to science and medicine, if you so feel inclined. There — I always like to remind people that clinical trials are consented, in order to run a clinical trial, obviously, there’s tons of regulatory hurdles that one might — had to go through to run a clinical trial. And to ask all the questions that you want, I love when people ask questions. But you are right, you know, myself, I started participating in clinical trials back when I was in graduate school over 10 years ago. And at this point, I have participated in over 100, for various different reasons. If I — I got a really good friend in D.C. who had sickle cells. So, I started to participate and donate cells to sickle cell patients. I do it because I feel like it is a way for me to give back and I feel like it also helps me to become more informed about the process as my vaccines go into clinical trial.

ISAACSON: As a kid growing up in North Carolina, how did you get interested in biotechnology?

DR. CORBETT: Oh, man. Really, you know, by chance. I got really interested in science by doing an internship in a chemistry laboratory when I was in high school. And it is a really unique job to have, right? I get to come to like this beautiful office every day. I get to have people who are working in my laboratory who are excited about data. I get to inform vaccine breakthroughs. I get to, you know, make history and talk to you and talk to the general public. And I think, for me, I would not know what else I would want to do, and that became very clear to me even when I was in high school.

ISAACSON: I’ve noticed with this revolution in the life sciences it’s been led in many ways by a lot of women. But there are very few people of color, very few young black students when I would go around the biochemistry labs in this country. What can we do to encourage people to become part of this and to help make sure that there is greater diversity in the field?

DR. CORBETT: You know, this question always comes from how can we encourage people to do more, and it’s really more so how can we make our environments, the labs, the universities, the biotech companies, the hospitals more inclusive so that everybody, not just black students, but everyone feels like, this is a place where I can work. And for me, I think that, moreover that anything that anyone could have done to convince me to be a scientist, I went to that lab that summer in high school, and I left saying, wow, this is a place that I can work. I was welcomed there. I was taught. I — the way that I spoke as a southern black girl was appreciated and understood. There are just small details about inclusion that we have to get better at in order to influence people to take on any kind of job, particularly in science.

ISAACSON: You know how viruses spread better than anybody, what do you feel about these studies that now shall mask-wearing maybe had no influence at all?

DR. CORBETT: I think that the data, by and large, suggests that masks, when worn, when there is large levels of community transmission, impede the spread and the transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19. You know, I think that — with studies, right, the way that you analyze your data, your population subset, there are little small details that can change the outcome of the study. But as I always say to anyone who has a question about masks or has a question about how they can’t — they just absolutely will not most likely come into — in contact with the virus, when in doubt, where a mask. And, you know, masks don’t care what variant it is, they’re going to block it whether it’s Omicron or Delta. And so, it is a fail-safe way and a public health measure that is a precaution when you are worried about transmission.

ISAACSON: Part of your research, and I think you are on the patents of some things like this, would involve a universal coronavirus vaccine so we wouldn’t have to get a different one for every variant that comes along. Explain to me how we could create one that’s universal, one that goes after any coronavirus?

DR. CORBETT: I do have work that informs universal coronavirus vaccine development, and there are certainly several different approaches. You can take the approach of those spike proteins giving people multiple different types of spike proteins so that they make a broader response. That’s generally more or less the type of approach that we have been interested in and many other people have been interested in. But, you know, I like to remind everyone as far as universal technologies, vaccine technologies are concerned, it’s still a long way out. And so, we are not promising that we’ll have universal technology tomorrow, but we are all working on it.

ISAACSON: Having gone through these three years of COVID, tell me what you’ve learned about what should be done to improve either biomedical research system or our even health systems in America?

DR. CORBETT: So, I think, you know, one thing that I have learned is that we have all of the small tools embedded in our system already. The one good thing about this pandemic is that we had no option but for each of those subsets to come together and work together. So, you know, you saw the National Institutes of Health working with the CDC and you saw just, you know, different organizations coming together. You saw doctors working with scientists and just all of these little pieces, all of this has to be a very concerted and collaborative effort in order to get the job done, from A to Z.

ISAACSON: Dr. Corbett, thank you so much for joining us.

DR. CORBETT: Thank you.