Volunteers Help Us Figure Out How We Could Be Immune to Coronavirus

A recent study conducted in the United Kingdom answers a burning question regarding the seeming immunity some individuals have against the coronavirus with findings that could lead to the development of treatments capable of mimicking these natural protective responses.

Through the Covid-19 Human Challenge Study and the Human Cell Atlas project, the team discovered that due to the combination of robust nasal cell defense and high activity of a particular gene called HLA-DQA2, some individuals managed to ward off the SARS-CoV-2 virus before it could take hold of them.

Thirty-six healthy adult volunteers – unvaccinated and never infected – were sprayed up their nose with a low dosage of the original SARS-CoV-2. Sixteen volunteers’ nasal and blood samples were frequently collected in the following 28 days to create a data set containing more than 600,000 individual cells and their behaviours before, during, and after exposure. Six of these 16 volunteers became ill and displayed symptoms, three briefly tested positive for COVID-19 without symptoms, and seven consistently tested negative, showing no symptoms but building up an immune response to the virus.