Imagine if we were born naturally immune to SARS-CoV-2, and didn't have to worry about contracting COVID-19 or spreading the virus. If you have this super power, researchers will want to meet you and enroll you in their research.
In a paper in Nature Immunology, an international team of scientists has launched a global hunt for people who are genetically resistant to infection with the COVID-19 pandemic virus.
The team hopes to identify the gene that protects these individuals to serve as a reference in the development of viral-blocking drugs that not only protect people from COVID-19, but also prevent them from transmitting the infection.
"This is a great idea, a really wise thing to do," said Mary Carrington, an immunogeneticist at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research in Bethesda, Maryland, US.
However, the success of this research project is not guaranteed. If genetic resistance to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus existed, only a handful of people might have this trait.
"The question is, how to find those people. It's very challenging," said Sunil Ahuja, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio.
However, the study's authors, including Evangelos Andreakos, an immunologist at the Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens, said they believed they could track down their prey.
"Even if we only identify one person, it will have a huge impact," he said.
Search for 'super' humans
The first step is to narrow the search to people who have been exposed, without protection, to people who have been sick for a long time, and have not tested positive or have no immune response to the virus. What's interesting is, people who share a house and bed with an infected partner.
The co-authors team from 10 research centers around the world, from Brazil to Greece, have recruited about 500 potential candidates, who may fit these criteria. Since the publication of their paper less than two weeks ago, as many as 600 people, including some from Russia and India, have contacted them, running as potential candidates.
"I didn't think for a second that the person himself, who was exposed and apparently uninfected, would contact us," said Jean-Laurent Casanova, a geneticist and co-author of the study at the University of Rockefeller in New York City, surprised at how people responded. .
The research team plans to recruit at least 1,000 people, and they have now started analyzing the data. Once they have identified potential candidates, the researchers will compare the genomes of individuals with those of those who have been infected, looking for genes associated with resistance. Each competing gene will be studied in cell and animal models to confirm a causal relationship with resistance and establish mechanisms of action.
Despite the various challenges this research has to face, the team of scientists is optimistic that they will be able to find people who are naturally immune to COVID-19.