Putting COVID-19 Vaccines to the Test

Client: American Museum of Natural History

Roles: Illustration, Animation

COVID-19 took the world by storm in 2019/20, but the story of SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19—begins decades ago. Scientists who studied the SARS and MERS epidemics in the early 2000s knew it was just a matter of time before a novel coronavirus would become a global health threat. What followed was the fastest vaccine development in history. This teaching case features researchers from Johns Hopkins University, the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institutes of Health, and the American Museum of Natural History, who will explain the science behind SARS-CoV-2, the development of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, and the long-standing health inequities that the pandemic shone a light on.