Science, The Real Hero
A Year Since
March 2021 marks just over a year since the world shut down with a widespread Pandemic that started in China and made its way into 219 countries in the world, in a matter of months! With 123 million cases worldwide and the cause of 2.7 million deaths so far, it brought the entire world to a standstill. For an entire year!
With hope now coming in the form of vaccines and the world slowly opening up, I look back at the heroes of this pandemic! But first, let’s talk Science.
Swift and Agile
The COVID-19 vaccine is the fastest ever produced in the history of mankind! The Ebola vaccine, in comparison, took 5 years! No vaccine, ever before, has been developed so quickly and been ready for mass use.
This pandemic also brought several heterogenous groups to work together, including governments. Worried about the severity of infections as well as high death rates, governments across the world put measures in place to protect their citizens — from lockdowns to investing millions of dollars into vaccine research and development. They even went a step further to ensure its manufacturing and distribution.
These same governments, acting swiftly and being agile, (not words that you would usually associate with governments) also took other measures, including allowing breweries and distilleries, to produce alcohol-based hand sanitizers, as demand skyrocketed. A call answered even by luxe companies such as LVMH, who retooled their production lines! LVMH, very quickly, used their factories that produced perfume and makeup for brands like Christian Dior and Givenchy, to start making hand gel. Others got inspired with a number of alcohol distilleries across the globe reported switching their production to hand sanitizer in a matter of weeks.
The Road to Vaccine
Vaccines typically require years of research and testing before reaching the clinic, but in 2020, scientists embarked on a never-before seen race to produce safe and effective coronavirus vaccines in human record time.
Currently, 78 vaccines are being tested in clinical trials on humans, and 23 have reached the final stages of testing. Outside of that, at least 77 preclinical vaccines are being actively investigated in animals.
As early as the 1st quarter of 2020, more than 380 companies embarked on the journey to create the vaccine for the high-infectious coronavirus. Close to 14 continue to be the frontrunners. Of these, three are already being used in the US — the double dose Moderna and Pfizer as well as the recently approved and introduced, single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. A human feat and a scientific miracle, no less!
Science Tech
The vaccine is different. In many ways. And I don’t just mean along the lines of the ‘quickest and the fastest’ but from a technology aspect as well.
The vaccine uses RNA technology. Think of it like teaching a person to fish, instead of, you know, handing over the fish! The technology uses your gene code to teach your cells how to make proteins. And the reasons why this is so amazing is because the next time something like this happens, a vaccine can be built faster and more easily than the traditional method. Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine uses this technology, birthing from a computer design in January 2020 to being studied on humans in just three months!
Phase 1 results came in late May 2020, as did the start of a mid-stage trial. The Phase 3 study began on July 27 and, four months later, delivered strongly positive results that indicated the vaccine was 94% effective in preventing COVID-19!
The Fauci Effect
Even as college and university enrollment overall had dropped last Fall, there seems be a wave of a record number of applicants to medical school. Up 18% this year over last, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), it seems to be driven by the phenomenal feat achieved by medical workers and public health figures such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
While talking about it, Geoffrey Young, the AAMC’s senior director for student affairs and programs, compares it to another tragic moment in American history: Sept 11, 2001. He said and I quote “After Sept. 11, there was a huge increase in the number of men and women entering into the military. So far in my lifetime and for as long as I’ve been in medical education, that’s the only comparison I could make.”
Stanford University School of Medicine reported a 50% jump in the number of applications. That is 11,000 applications for 90 seats. Boston University School of Medicine’s applications are up 27%. In other words, 12,024 for about 110 seats.
Medical school admissions officers, and now others, have started calling this the Fauci Effect.
Science’s Moment in the Sun
This pandemic has so many heroes. But for now, to give justice where it is due, this is the moment of science and scientists. Scientists such as Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, for instance, who have dedicated their entire lives pioneering personalized immunotherapy treatments for cancer. But amid the coronavirus pandemic, it was their groundbreaking research in the field of modified genetic code that were the brains behind the world’s first effective and produced coronavirus vaccine.
Not too long ago, I used to be a science student. In fact, my science project actually came first, nationally, in my country of 1.2 billion people. It was a simple project that used data and observation to look at the correlation between various elements and growth. Perhaps that is how my love for observation may have started. The win was big enough to put me on local television at the age of 16! But when I sometimes share this, people are usually surprised. Surprised because they don’t think of me as a science student, having then moved onto Psychology, Marketing and Consumer Behavior (with a sprinkling of Political Science on the side!)
What made me move? I was being pushed to become a doctor and not wanting to adhere to the Asian Indian stereotype, I fought it by changing streams altogether. Don’t get me wrong. I love consumer behavior and I love it enough to someday, do a PhD on the subject.
Having said that, if I could do it all over again, I just might do medicine and become a doctor — one who would have been on the frontlines, putting her own life in danger, working long hours every day and not knowing when she might have time for a meal, because she is so busy saving lives.
Perhaps that is what a real ‘effect’ does — it does not need social media to make it viral nor does it need white papers. What it does need is consistency and a belief for what it stands for. In other words, the true definition of a brand and brand purpose.
Every time I saw Dr. Fauci on television, I saw someone who represented the global science community as well as someone who represented hope. In a short span, he became and continues to be a brand ambassador for science in general and for medicine, in particular.
I am in deep gratitude for Dr. Fauci and what he continues to do for the future of science. I hope somewhere out there, someone is writing a children’s book where F now stands for Fauci and children will soon hear the tale of this one man who stood up and fought for science against all odds, including (gasp) the possibility of saving ourselves with drinking bleach!
In Deep Gratitude for Science
Naysayers are not new to the world, and this time is no different. There are those who believe that the world is flat, that we never landed on the moon and that vaccines don’t work.
As the world continues to try and move on from a year of pause, and more of us put our belief in science by getting ourselves vaccinated, I do want to take a moment and bow my head in deep gratitude for all those who, day in and day out, were in labs across the globe, trying to get the fastest vaccine in the history of mankind, to the finish line.
The vote is in — science did save us. Along the way, it is also inspiring an entire generation to embrace their lab coats, aka white capes, to become real life heroes. What a miracle. Now that’s science!
Anika Sharma is a digital thought leader, a mother and a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. She was recently named as one of the top digital global leaders to follow in 2021. When she is not helping clients navigate the world of Customer Experience and Design Systems, you can find her planting herbs in her garden, meditating with her friends, swimming long laps, training for triathlons or filling rooms with her resounding laughter. Find her on twitter @anikadas
