They juggled their medical careers with raising three children. Turner-Graham started at Meharry Medical College in a pediatrics residency, then left early to care for an underserved population at Bordeaux Hospital. Graham served as chief resident at two hospitals, including Vanderbilt University Medical Center. In the search for a place where they could do their residencies together, they settled on Tennessee. Turner-Graham said she knew he would find his way back one day.
But, Graham said, “we basically just decided to listen to ourselves.”Īround that time, Graham went on a rotation to the National Institutes of Health. Interracial marriage wasn’t as common in the late 1970s, and some people on both sides of their families tried to discourage them initially. They discovered their lives echoed in ways that meant they could understand each other. And then there were the big things they shared, like the value they placed on family and faith. They quickly realized how much they had in common - little things, like their fathers were both dentists and they both drove Mustangs. “When we met and started dating, the fact that we enjoyed each other’s company surprised us both,” Turner-Graham said. People wondered what they had to say to one another. Turner-Graham loves to talk Graham is reserved. Their insights and discoveries flew under the radar for years, until the world needed them the most. They are the vaccine vanguard, the people who invented the tools that will help wrestle the pandemic to the ground. But the sprint to a vaccine depended on the meticulous labor of a visionary group of researchers. Thousands of individuals contributed to the coronavirus vaccines, which were possible because of scientific teamwork on a massive scale. Then, in a plot line more typical of a Hollywood thriller than the disappointing, failure-filled trajectory of ordinary science, the first versions authorized in the United States were a spectacular success, exceeding all expectations. Scientists will be busy for years, making sure immunity doesn’t fade and that vaccines stay ahead of the virus as it evolves.īut at the beginning of the pandemic, it was far from guaranteed that an effective vaccine could be developed. That doesn’t mean the virus is vanquished. Within a year of the first reports of an alarming new illness, scientists delivered remarkably effective vaccines. But beyond the uncertainties of life in a public health crisis is a feat that appears destined to become one of the defining stories of the worst pandemic in a century. “Had it been any other kind of virus, they would have been ill-prepared,” said Modjarrad, who now runs his own lab studying emerging pathogens at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md.Įveryday life in the pandemic has been marked by the uneasy churn of devastating surges, new variants and a constant sense of foreboding about what the coronavirus might have in store next. Out of two dozen possible virus families that could spark a pandemic, it was this - a coronavirus. Graham, still a Kansas farm boy at heart, craved a burger.Īt the best burger joint in Geneva, run by an expat from Brooklyn, they marveled at something that only those deeply embedded in the field could recognize: the sheer luck of it. Modjarrad knew Geneva well, because Graham had sent him there to work on the Ebola response in 2015. Years earlier, Modjarrad had worked in Graham’s lab, researching coronaviruses as part of his portfolio. After a long day of discussions, Modjarrad offered to take Graham out for dinner.