Dolly Parton among donors behind Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine

Dolly Parton can add another achievement to her résumé: helping to fund research for Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine.

The “9 to 5” singer was one of several donors listed Monday as part of the announcement that Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine candidate was 94.5 percent effective in an interim analysis. The “Dolly Parton COVID-19 Research Fund” was named as a supporter in the footnotes of a New England Journal of Medicine report.

“I’m just happy that anything I do can help somebody else,” Parton said Tuesday, when asked about her donation in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show.

“When I donated the money to the COVID fund, I just wanted it to do good,” she added. “And evidently, it is. And let’s just hope we find a cure real soon.”

Parton, 74, announced back in April that she was giving $1 million to researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center toward finding a vaccine to fight against COVID-19.

In an April Instagram post announcing her contribution, the Grammy Award winner said she was donating in honor of her longtime friend, Dr. Naji Abumrad, a researcher at Vanderbilt who informed her “that they were making some exciting advancements towards research of the coronavirus for a cure.”

—Updated at 4:53 p.m.