I have spent my whole life preparing for COVID-19. Here is what I have learned.
Between modern virology and the history of the Black Plague, I have some thoughts to offer from a life spent preparing for “the big” pandemic.
“Nothing in our lives has prepared us for this moment,” a leader at my job said yesterday on a staff call. For most people, that’s true.
I used to get sick a lot when I was a kid, so I spent a lot of time in doctor’s offices. I guess that’s where my interest in disease started; I was always curious and there’s not much else to learn about in doctor’s offices.
I got my first job in a lab — basically, doing DNA testing — when I was 16. I’ve been a biologist ever since. In undergrad, alongside my biology major, I did a thesis on public health responses to the Black Plague in 1348.
As a PhD student in biomedical sciences, my thesis — “A Paramyxovirus Strategy for Dismantling RIG-I Signaling” — was born out of my study of a key emerging pathogen, Nipah virus, which has several similarities to the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen that causes COVID-19.
Since my PhD, I have worked in the pharmaceutical industry across the entirety of the product lifecycle, from development to launch, as a…
