Dr. Kizzmekia “Kizzy” Corbett

Dr. Kizzmekia “Kizzy” Corbett (1986- ), viral immunologist. Kizzmekia Shanta Corbett was born and raised in the small North Carolina town of Hurdle Mills, part of a large extended family, and grew up in nearby Hillsborough. She showed high intelligence at a young age, and her mother later remembered her as being “like a little detective, my sweet little, opinionated detective.” Her third-grade teacher encouraged her mother and stepfather to demand that the school district put her in on the most demanding academic track, something they rarely did for black children. While in high school she interned in a research laboratory at the University of North Carolina, where she studied the bacteria that causes scarlet fever and worked with a grad student who later became a department chair at Tuskegee University; “I didn’t even know that this thing called a Ph.D. even really existed,” she later said, “Or, at least I didn’t know what it meant. And so, to have someone going through the graduate school process who was a familiar face – he was a black man from Alabama – really kind of helped me.” She received a full scholarship to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, part of a fellowship program that has produced more African Americans in the medical field than any other predominantly white institution. While in college Corbett studied the pathogenesis (origin and development) of pseudotuberculosis (a bacteria that causes scarlet fever-like conditions), worked as a lab technician and as a biological sciences trainer at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), did field work on health outcomes in underserved minority communities, and graduated with a degree in biological sciences and sociology. While interning at the NIH she met the head of the Vaccine Research Center, who asked what she wanted to do with her life, and she answered, “I want your job.” She then earned a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from the University of North Carolina in 2014. Her dissertation research included working in Sri Lanka to study how the body produces antibodies to fight dengue fever, a tropical disease spread by mosquitos, and the role that genetics play in this process.

After completing her Ph.D., Corbett became a viral immunologist at the NIH with a focus on viral pathogenesis and host immunity. She gave particular attention to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which collectively infected more than 10,000 people around the world in the early 21^st century. These viruses caused Corbett to begin exploring such diseases due to concern that another one could spread in the future; in her words, “these big, challenging questions remained, along with the fact that it was clear that it could happen again. It was looming out there and just a matter of time.” SARS and MERS are both part of a virus group called coronaviruses, which cause respiratory tract infections and are named for the fact that they physically resemble a solar corona. Some coronaviruses produce conditions such as the common cold and pneumonia, but a new one called SARS-Co-V-2 causes coronavirus disease 2019, also known as COVID-19. This disease is carried in fluids such as saliva and mucus and is spread in two ways: first, by inhaling the droplets that people release when exhaling, talking, sneezing, or coughing; or second, by touching a surface that has been contaminated with those droplets within the last 72 hours and then touching their own eyes, nose, or mouth. Its transmission can be prevented by vigorous and frequent hand washing, maintaining social distance from people outside of one’s household, wearing face masks in public, and keeping one’s unwashed hands away from the face. COVID-19 first spread from bats to humans in China in December 2019 and rapidly spread around the world. As of April 2020 there have been more than 2.4 million confirmed cases, 624,000 recoveries, and 165,000 deaths in 185 different countries. The U.S. currently leads all countries in those categories due in part to a slow response and conflicting messages from the federal government, and more than 41,000 Americans have died. In an effort to stop its spread until a vaccine is developed, much of the global economy and human society in general has partly or completely shut down, with schools and universities switching to online learning, sporting events cancelled or postponed, limited human interaction, heightening of problems such as anxiety and domestic abuse, people in white-collar jobs working remotely from home, and numerous businesses closing and employees losing their jobs. The U.S. currently has the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression in the early 1930s. The disease has also severely affected African Americans due to preexisting social inequalities. Black Americans disproportionately suffer from higher rates of conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and asthma, have less access to health care, live in crowded urban neighborhoods where social distancing is less possible; and work in professions where contact with infected persons is more likely. As a result, for instance, African Americans are 22% of North Carolina’s population but 38% of COVID-19 deaths, while in Chicago they comprise 30% of the population but 68% of deaths.

Despite being only 34 years old, Corbett’s years of experience in studying coronavirus made her the NIH’s choice to lead the efforts to develop a vaccine. She realized that the COVID-19 coronavirus, like other viruses that she had previously explored and all coronaviruses in general, carry a spike protein: a claw-shaped protrusion on the virus surface that invades health human cells and infects them. She and other researchers have developed a genetic code sequence that prompts the body’s immune system to detect this spike protein and prevent it from infecting cells. She anticipates that it will take about two months for a vaccine to be ready for trials, the fastest ever progress in such a case, but widespread vaccination will probably not be available until early 2021. This project has required her to work twenty hours a day, seven days a week. One of her colleagues recently said of her “She’s putting in long, long hours, doing critical, potentially world-altering work,” while another wrote “[She’s] a really quite outstanding, hard-working scientist…Fate has put her in a position to make a huge difference in human health, and it has made a good choice.” As the leader of the research team, Corbett has also frequently been called into the public eye. She has used interviews, Twitter, and other platforms to encourage people to engage in social distancing and hand washing, to reject bigotry towards Asian Americans, and to dismiss false claims of cures. As a Christian she has called on people of faith to avoid spreading the disease by defying quarantine laws and going to church, and as an African American she has worked to address suspicion towards the vaccine effort within the black community, a suspicion rooted in the legacy of medical experiments done on black people and in distrust for President Trump. In March 2020 she was part of the NIH team that welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump to their research facility in an effort to explain their work to him, and photos appear to show that she was the only person in the group not a white male. She has reflected on this work by stating “To be living in this moment where I have the opportunity to work on something that has imminent global importance…it’s just a surreal moment for me.” This profile has also brought racist backlash, with one person tweeting that she should “go back to McDonald’s where you belong” and Fox News criticizing her for noting that Trump’s coronavirus task force consisted largely of white men while also placing the word “lead” in her job description in mocking quotation marks. On a number of occasions, people have insisted on talking to her supervisor rather than to her even after he explains that she is the head of the scientific research team. To this she has said “At some point, you just have to say, ‘I don’t care what they think,’ and just show up and let your work speak for you.” Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, Corbett was involved in numerous efforts to encourage African Americans to consider careers in science; as she said, “My community has held me down. Particularly during this time and previous times as I’ve moved throughout my career trajectory. So, it’s important to me to give back in that way.” Part of this has been her cultural sensibility as a young black woman. She stated in one interview that she would discuss science anywhere from “the trap house to the White House,” and she joked that if she wins the Nobel Prize, the rappers Young Jeezy and DaBaby will perform at the ceremony. She has summarized her identity and her work in this way: “I am Christian. I’m black. I am Southern, I’m an empath. I’m feisty, sassy, and fashionable. That’s kind of how I describe myself. I would say that my role as a scientist is really about my passion and purpose for the world and for giving back to the world.”

©David Brodnax, Sr.