In the ensuing decades, the passion of many of those researchers came together to create treatments for the COVID-19 pandemic in record time. In fact, the Moderna vaccine and a similar vaccine developed by Pfizer, as well as an antibody treatment developed by AstraZeneca and the antiviral drug remdesivir, all have their roots in research conducted by Graham and others at Vanderbilt in the 1990s, when no one spared much money-or thought-for coronaviruses. The key to unlocking a vaccine for COVID-19 was more than 30 years in the making and based on research into a number of other infectious diseases. Recent scientific advances enabled the Moderna vaccine to be developed in a matter of weeks-as opposed to the years typically required for more traditional vaccines-but this was by no means an overnight success story. “It not only exceeded my expectations, it exceeded my hopes.” “The slope of the curve was very steep,” Graham says. The steeper the curve, the more effective the antibodies.
To measure vaccine efficacy, scientists create graphs showing how many virus particles the serum kills in various concentrations. As he examined the images Denison sent, it was clear that the vaccine wasn’t just working-it was blowing the virus away. “Barney,” Denison said, “it looks like it’s working.” Graham let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for months-ever since SARS-CoV-2 began wreaking havoc on the country’s health. James Chappell, PhD’97, MD’01, research associate professor of pediatrics, were on the phone to Graham to fill him in on the very first results. Mark Denison, director of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The patients’ blood serum had been extracted and flown across the country to Nashville, where it was analyzed in the lab of Dr. Two months earlier, Graham had overseen the injection of the first volunteers with an experimental vaccine, developed by biotech company Moderna, to combat the novel coronavirus. As deputy director of the National Institutes of Health’s Vaccine Research Center, Graham knew the call could mean one of two things: a breakthrough that might spare the lives of millions around the globe, or a discouraging setback that would allow the accelerating pandemic to continue unchecked for the foreseeable future.
Barney Graham, PhD’91, picked up his ringing phone with equal parts hope and trepidation. In early May of last year, soon after the United States reported its 1 millionth case of COVID-19 nationwide, Dr.
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