Doc follows passion to find success at Duke Human Vaccine Institute

When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, the Duke Human Vaccine Institute was uniquely positioned to quickly help develop testing and set up clinical trials for new vaccines.

The director of research there, Dr. Kevin Saunders, credits his mother, a registered nurse, and high school teachers who nurtured a passion for science and biology.

"I really had an appreciation for disease and infectious disease and how to really have an impact on that," Saunders said.

"In life, you will come across something that when you do it, it doesn't feel like work. It doesn't feel like it's something someone has to force you do to. That ends up being your passion."

Saunders, a Black man, a husband and father of two tries to lead by example to pique the interest of a new generation of young people of color in science and biology.

"I think it's time that you can really focus on how can we affect change," he said. "How can we each do something that changes, socially, the dynamics we have in society right now?"