Science explodes like a tsunami in everyday life.

He was released from voluntary confinement to prepare his opposition to the professor of immunology, and could only have fun for a few days before facing the confinement caused by the epidemic. Alfredo Correll remembers with nostalgia his last social event: the family celebration after passing his exam on March 6. A moment of professional achievement, accompanied by re-engagement with a reality that was changing every minute due to a virus that caused this to be the twelve months of his life. “Between March 8 and 12, I knew what was coming for us. It was a perfect sandwich between two situations.”

At that time, twelve months ago, he was director of the online UVa Study Center, which went from caring for a residual portion of academic activity to leading the step, without transition, to virtual teaching. “I found myself totally taking responsibility for moving online to UVa. I think since then I have been working at 400% and in a state of constant fatigue. ” All this work, which was recognized by the rest of the universities as a pioneer, did not exempt him from facing criticism and resistance from a group for change, but above all, he was appreciated by the university community and earned him his appointment as vice-president of the university to teach innovation and digital transformation.

In this challenge, his previous assignment teaching innovation helped him a lot. “I’ve always been a pioneer in teaching things, challenging myself and doing new things. My Immunomodulatory project was awarded the Best Project for Diffusion of Medicine in Spanish in 2018. ” But the pandemic has changed its style as well because until last year publishing relied on making students heroes, while now it is a reference science publisher for national media.

This popularity was reinforced by his membership in the board of directors of the Spanish Immune Society. “Immunology is a very forgetful discipline, and at the beginning of the epidemic, the media did not contact us to compare information,” he says. It is for this reason that the association decided to make its voice heard when it comes to talking about antibodies and immunity. Correct information was not provided and we decided to issue a press release. It was a shock and they started calling us, ”he remembers. Correll recalls being called on TV to talk about neutralizing the antibodies.“ I knew some of my previous interventions were very good, but they were for immunologists and not for the population. ”He set himself the challenge of Explaining something complicated in a way that is easy for everyone to access, all of this is conditional on being restricted and limited resources at home. “He had some little disciples. I decided that if you put one in a bottle it could be the virus and the perfect cell. As a lock, I used a clothespin. That was the beginning of it all.” People saw him in these months. ” Little by little he becomes more and more complex and he is convinced that he has achieved his goal: to make it understandable.

These months of scholarly publishing, and many of his home office, have made him a media star, many viewers associating with his Marvel shield. Although this accessory is associated with his personal life. “It’s my husband’s gift for the chair.” He’s been at home since March 6, and he put it in the room he’s working in, which was half-assembled at the time, and put it on top of some boxes. “It was not commented anymore because it was in the background of my entries and its use became popular. And there it stayed. It has nothing to do with immunology, although it could be a metaphor for the immune system. Although he did not use the Marvel saga for his interpretations. “To explain this, anything that gives you access to a large universe of people will do.” This is part of its success: making science and its concepts accessible to all. And he celebrates, “I have received wonderful messages from people who told me I made my grandmother and the girl sit down to see me.” He also loves that other people imitated his coronavirus and called it the crown because they are using Dark Vader. “They went to the Chinese to buy pinball and made a mask and then hung it on the net. An effect he admitted he had never imagined.”