Blood from recovered COVID-19 patients is a key resource for scientists
A recovered COVID-19 patient donates blood in Beijing. | Photo by Cui Nan/China News Service via Getty Images
When a new virus like the novel coronavirus appears and starts infecting people, one critical asset in the fight against it is blood from people who were sick and then recovered. These blood samples can help scientists understand how the immune system responds to it, and can help in the search for therapies to treat the disease.
That’s why, this week, the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institutes of Health put out a call looking for blood donations from people who had COVID-19 and are now healthy.
Analysis of blood samples can give researchers information about if and how people develop protective antibodies after an infection. The immune system usually produces antibodies, which can bind to and deactivate viruses, during and...