Dr. Ala Stanford administers a COVID-19 swab test on a person in the parking lot of Pinn Memorial Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Wednesday, April 22, 2020. Stanford and other doctors formed the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium to offer testing and help address heath disparities in the African American community. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
It is well-documented that advanced age is a comorbidity for Covid-19; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state clearly that a person’s risk for developing a severe illness increases with age, and adults ages 50 and over are hospitalized at higher rates than those in their 40s, 30s or 20s.
However, among the many people who are serving at the frontlines of the effort to fight the coronavirus pandemic are women at and over the age of 50; they’re women who, having devoted decades of their careers to science and medicine (and, in one case, philanthropy), are now seeing their work make a meaningful difference at a moment it matters most. And so, as part of our regular segment on Morning Joe highlighting women over the age of 50 who are changing the world, Forbes and “Know Your Value” want to shine a light on the women in this group who are making the most significant contributions in the effort to eradicate Covid. They are:
Kathrin Jansen, 63: The head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer, Jansen oversees a team of 650 people and is the person who has led the company’s efforts to bring a Covid vaccine to market. She succeeded—according to data Pfizer released in November, its two-shot dose is 95% effective—and did so in less than a year’s time, a remarkable scientific achievement.
As extraordinary a circumstance as the coronavirus pandemic has presented for Jansen, it’s not the first time she’s introduced a brand new vaccine to the American public. She spearheaded the development of Prevnar, which prevents pneumonia in kids and adults, and Gardasil, which protects girls from getting the human papilloma virus, or HPV, a leading cause of cervical cancer.
Though she fought tremendous skepticism among her colleagues, particularly those who thought the drug would lose her then-employer, Merck, a lot of money, Jansen persisted. Gardasil was approved by the CDC in 2006, and today, two-thirds of girls between 13 and 17 receive at least one dose of the two-shot regiment. “If you have a scientific intuition and you’re careful with your experimentation, at the end, you have to follow your gut and not let naysayers derail you,” Jansen has said.
Dr. Ala Stanford, 50: Stanford turned 50 at the end of December and is only two months “over” her five-decade mark, but the Philadelphia-based doctor and pediatric surgeon is currently doing the most important work of her life. This spring, she founded the Black Doctors Covid-19 Consortium as a way to bring testing and treatment to the city’s Black and brown communities.
“On April 3rd, the Philadelphia Tribune reported that African Americans were dying at a rate greater than anyone else,” Dr. Stanford has said. “That was my wakeup call to say, ‘OK, I’m not just going to sit on the couch. I need to do something.’”
During a vaccination clinic at Temple University’s Liacouras Center this past Saturday, Stanford and her organization vaccinated nearly 4,000 people—a rate that surpasses the city’s 3,500-person daily vaccination average—from Philly’s hardest hit zip codes. Three out of four of the people she vaccinated were people of color, compared to citywide efforts that have disproportionately given shots to white residents. On Monday, Stanford met with Temple and Philadelphia officials to discuss ways to launch future 24-hour vaccination sites, as well as ways to ensure the 4,000 who received their first shot on Saturday get their second dose in March.
“We have much more work to do,” she says.
Dolly Parton, 75: Parton, of course, is neither scientist nor doctor, but she’s something else that’s just as important: philanthropist. The singer donated $1 million to coronavirus research at Vanderbilt University in April, a fact that was only revealed in November when Parton’s name was included as part of a Moderna report on its vaccine’s efficacy (95%). Vanderbilt worked with Moderna to develop its drug, and doctors involved in the research said Parton’s money contributed to tests that helped show people’s immune response to the shot.
“When I donated the money to the Covid fund I just wanted it to do good and evidently, it is!” Parton tweeted in November. “Let’s just hope we can find a cure real soon.”
Katalin Karikó, 66: Relative to some of the other names on this list, Karikó is the unsung hero. For decades, she has quietly devoted her career to studying and promoting mRNA technology—technology that is now the basis of the Covid vaccines being distributed across the globe.
Karikó was born in Hungary and began her scientific career there, but immigrated to Philadelphia in 1985 with her husband, daughter, and the equivalent of $1200 stuffed in her daughter’s teddy bear for safe keeping. Her first ten years in the U.S. were not smooth; her idea that mRNA could be used to fight disease was, at the time, considered too radical and risky. She was demoted from her job at a Penn lab and was diagnosed with cancer shortly thereafter. But she didn’t give up on her mRNA thesis; in 2006 she cofounded a firm to develop mRNA drugs, and in 2013 joined BioNTech as a senior vice president. She is also now the head of its RNA protein replacement therapies.
“I never doubted it would work,” she told the Guardian shortly before the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine got emergency use authorization from the federal government. “I always wished that I would live long enough to see something that I’ve worked on be approved.”
