We all know a “Covid virgin,” or “Novid,” someone who has defied all logic in dodging the coronavirus. Scientists think they might hold the key to helping protect us all. Via WIREDUK
Then the highly infectious Omicron variant arrived. “Omicron has really ruined this project, I have to be honest with you,” says Vinh. It dramatically reduced their pool of candidates. But Spaan views Omicron’s desecration in a more positive light: that some recruits survived the Omicron waves really lends support to the existence of innate resistance.
Now that they have a substantial cohort, the group will take a twofold approach to hunting for a genetic explanation for resistance. First, they’ll blindly run every person’s genome through a computer to see if any gene variation starts to come up frequently. At the same time, they’ll look specifically at an existing list of genes they suspect might be the culprits—genes that if different from usual would just make sense to infer resistance.
Once they come up with a list of gene candidates, it’ll then be a case of narrowing and narrowing that list down. They’ll go through the list one by one, testing each gene’s impact on defenses against Covid in cell models. That process will take between four to six months, Vinh estimates.
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