Video provided by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

 

In this war against novel coronavirus-COVID-19, there are countless frontline soldiers battling this disease. Doctors, nurses, scientist, researchers, medical professionals of all kind are doing their part to stop this menace from sickening and killing those it encounters.

Dr. Kizzmekia S. Corbett, a viral immunologist with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is one of those soldiers leading a scientific team in Seattle, Washington on developing a novel coronavirus-COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Corbett and her team began researching a vaccine in January when the virus was discovered to be extremely deadly and making its trek around the globe.

Dr. Corbett has been a researcher for over 10 years and during that time her research included working on vaccines for SARS and MERS. “What we know is that this virus is in the same family of viruses like SARS, so it is akin, and about 80 percent genetically similar to the SARS virus,” explains Dr. Corbett in a video from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “Everyday we are learning more and more and more, obviously, because this is a novel virus, and even though we’ve been to this rodeo before with MERS AND SARS, there are so many unknowns.”

Because of their previous work on SARS AND MERS, her team had a head start in the development of a COVID-19 vaccine. Now, like so many others around the world, they are racing to develop a vaccine.

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