A. Oveta Fuller, Ph.D., was an esteemed microbiologist and public health advocate who, in 2021, served on the Food and Drug Administration's advisory committee to review the COVID-19 vaccines. Yet, in the wake of her untimely passing on at age 67 from illness, her legacy is at risk, her death wielded by online conspiracy theorists and right-wing publications in a campaign of COVID vaccine-related misinformation.

These abhorrent groups are seizing on the fact that she voted 'No' during the initial meeting to grant emergency use authorization to imply that the vaccines are somehow unsafe. However, she did not vote no because she thought the vaccines were unsafe. She voted no because she felt there was not enough time allotted to have her questions about the data answered, data that pertained to groups often overlooked during clinical trials, including people who are pregnant, Black people and other minorities.

In light of her courage to speak up, the structure of subsequent meetings was changed, in part to facilitate more time for questions by the panel. She ultimately voted yes to authorize use of the vaccines and worked tirelessly to educate the community about COVID and how to protect against it.

As a Black woman, she knew how important it was that her community—a community disproportionately affected by the pandemic—be able to trust the vaccines. She also knew that even following the availability of the vaccines, our work as researchers to understand the virus and protect the public did not stop.

As a member of this panel, Fuller was routinely subjected to abuse from COVID deniers, threatening that terrible things would happen to her. Through it all she had the conviction to not be bothered by the noise, but remain focused on the data, and do her job in service of the public during a time of immense crisis.

Given what she dealt with before the vote, she would likely not be surprised by the trolling. But she would undoubtedly be shocked by the nastiness and brutality of it all. She would also not want it to go unanswered, knowing as she did the power of both accurate information and misinformation.

As basic and translational scientists, our perspective is often informed by molecular mechanisms of biology and not necessarily the big picture. But Fuller took her research out into communities and developed a whole new way of reaching them.

After achieving tenure, being the first Black person and woman in her department to do so, she leaned into doing more community engagement, trying to assert that this type of work is also valuable scholarship.

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Despite being booked and busy, she always made time in her schedule to mentor and minister to us. Her message was that there is an effective way we can apply our scientific principles to the dissemination of information and that is important for scientists to do. She also reminded us that there is a distinct separation between what is typically held up as measures of success and our value as scientists—that we need to do the work that is important and meaningful to ourselves.

She was successful in so many ways, always had funding to do her experiments, took students to Africa, and she made real impact on communities, both there and here.

Her trusted messenger intervention for HIV/AIDS prevention put forth this idea that if you figure out who the messengers are in a community and the network formed around them, you can intervene on those trusted individuals and those individuals can go out into the community, creating a ripple effect. The goal of her intervention was to counter misinformation and stigma around getting tested and treated for HIV. This work, which she spent more than a decade doing, uniquely prepared her to address the pandemic crisis.

Unfortunately, the fallout from all of this crazy news coverage is almost a testament to how important she really was.

We as Black women scientists are now carrying her torch. Even today, we find ourselves in situations where we are one of the first in our departments, but it's a different landscape than the one she had to contend with when she was just starting out as an assistant professor 30 years ago.

Today, people are acknowledging issues and trying to make change. Even before she knew us, she worked this whole time to change things for us. She's one of a long legacy of ancestors that have come and tried to move things forward but whose stories often go unknown. We're glad people will know her name and we'll make sure people continue to know about her. She will not be a forgotten ancestor.

Ariangela Kozik, Ph.D., is a research investigator with the Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine at U-M Medical School and co-founder of the Black Microbiologists Association. Chelsey Spriggs, Ph.D., is an assistant professor with the Departments of Cell & Developmental Biology and Microbiology & Immunology at the U-M Medical School.

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