Your vaccine questions deserve real answers | Kizzmekia Corbett | Your Body on Tech

**Manoush Zomorodi** (0:03)
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. Hello, I am Manoush Zomorodi. I am a journalist, author, two-time TED speaker. You may know my voice because I host the TED Radio Hour podcast over on NPR. This week, I am taking over for Elise Hu with a little something special. A series of episodes all about how you can live a healthier life in our high-tech era.
So why me? Well, because I had the honor of guest-curating a session at the recent TED 2026 conference, and I focused on my obsession, which is tech, the human body, and what is keeping us human in this digital age. Every day this week, we are bringing you one of these talks from my session, followed by a conversation with that speaker to go deeper. Today, Kizzmekia Corbett. She is a viral immunologist at the Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health, who served as scientific lead on the Moderna COVID vaccine.
This vaccine was developed in a world record-breaking 66 days. But Kizzmekia is really candid about what she and her team did wrong when it came to rolling out the vaccine to the public, many of whom were skeptical.

**Kizzmekia Corbett** (1:28)
And the truth of the matter is that vaccinologists like myself had long ignored this population of people who just were not going to take vaccines for one reason or the other. We were too busy publishing our data in world-renowned journals kind of talking to ourselves.

**Manoush Zomorodi** (1:44)
So how do we build back the public's trust in science and medicine, especially considering the recent outbreaks of hantavirus and Ebola? What is the role of the people making the vaccines in connecting with the people who don't believe that what she does is even legitimate?
Language, Kizzmekia has decided, matters a lot. This was something she learned when she went on a date with the guy who eventually became her husband. When he told her he wasn't so sure about how he felt about vaccines, she had a bit of an epiphany.

**Kizzmekia Corbett** (2:20)
I think it's appropriate that we answer hard core questions with as much nuance and diligence as possible towards advancing science. But I also think that we should be answering to people. The truth of the matter is that curiosity and science exist right here as I look out of the window. And inviting that type of curiosity from the community into science, particularly into vaccine development and understanding, can only make what we do better.

**Manoush Zomorodi** (2:54)
Kizzmekia's fascinating personal story, how it relates to your health, and how we'll cope with the next pandemic. That's right after a quick break.
And now our TED Talk end conversation of the day.

**Kizzmekia Corbett** (3:17)
So in summer 2018, I went on a first date. Now in my early 30s, this of course was not my first first date. And so I wasn't expecting much except for some beers and tacos. That was until I was too many beers in and too deep in conversation.
My question to him at the end of the night, do you plan to vaccinate your kids?
His reply, sure, except for the flu vaccine, because the flu vaccine has viruses in it. And every time I take it, I get sick. I guess he didn't realize that he was sitting across the table from a woman who had just invented a novel flu vaccine that was then slated for clinical trial. But at the same time, I was a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health Vaccine Research Center. And so normally, that answer would have sent me packing on to my next first date, but I liked this guy. And so I stayed and I answered a few questions after getting another beer. I told him that yes, the flu vaccine does have viruses in it, but those viruses are not alive. And so they technically cannot make you sick. Sure, you may feel a little groggy after getting the shot, but that's just a sign that your immune system is working. And I asked him a simple question. Did he know that there are 200 or more viruses that can cause flu-like symptoms or the common cold? Of course, he didn't have an answer, but that's what you get when you take a vaccinologist on a date.
Surprisingly, he was not offended, and he asked me out on a second date. And I got more than a second date out of this guy. I got my first understanding of what I now like to call vaccine inquisitiveness.
It wasn't that he was just reluctant to get his self-vaccines or to get his future children vaccinated. It was that he had questions, concerns, misinformation buried deep down for which he needed an expert like myself to answer without scorn and without judgment. Nevertheless, I went back into the lab and I did what I do, making vaccines. And then on December 31st of the next year, there was a report of a mysterious virus in Wuhan, China. It had sickened 27 people. This was a moment that my team had prepared for. You see, not only was I on the flu team, but I was also the scientific lead of the coronavirus vaccine team.