Dolly Parton’s donation helped create COVID-19 vaccine

SAN ANTONIO (KTSA News) -Country Music legend Dolly Parton is trending online because she helped fund Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine research.

Parton originally donated $1 million in April to Vanderbilt University Medical Center after her friend and professor of surgery Dr. Naji Abumrad told her about advances being made in research to fight coronavirus. Now she’s credited with helping to fund Moderna’s vaccine, which is nearly 95 percent effective against COVID-19.

Dr. Meade Krosby shared a tweet Monday noting that Dolly’s donation and her name are listed among those who contributed to funding for the research.

Parton briefly talked about it on NBC’s Today Show Tuesday.

“I’m just happy that anything I do, can help somebody else, and when I donated the money to the COVID fund, I just wanted it to do good and evidently it is,” Parton told the Today Show. “I just hope we find a cure real soon.”

Fact-checking this was worth it just to see @DollyParton in the acknowledgments of a @NEJM article. And I thought I couldn’t love her more. https://t.co/S3njHEFcGT pic.twitter.com/WcrFIrHp67

— Dr. Meade Krosby (@MeadeKrosby) November 17, 2020