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Language: en
could this blood test tell if you're
immune to kovat 19 in recent weeks seems
like everybody's been talking about
those antibodies antibody antibody tests
antibody tests have taken center stage
as the crucial new tool for
understanding how widespread the
pandemic is and recently did you get
your blood drawn a lot no I was lucky
enough to be tested to see if I have
these highly sought-after antibodies and
we're going to do some analysis on the
antibodies but what are these antibodies
and what do the results really mean so I
do call antibodies magic bullets I might
not be the only person in the world that
caused the magic bullets delete alter is
an antibody aficionado in normal times
she studies how these magic molecules
work essentially what antibodies are are
the immune system's ability to make
molecules that go around the entire body
survey all the different tissues and
then as soon as antibodies see a
pathogen they will stick on to that
surface and they will mark that surface
the entire immune system knows that
there is something going on with that
particular cell and that pathogen must
be destroyed and here's the neat thing
about antibodies after they evolved in
your body to take out specific pathogens
they then stick around in your blood for
a while leaving an archive of what
you've been exposed to and therefore
what you might be immune to my
laboratory has been focusing on the
development of tools that can tell us
how much antibody to coronavirus we have
in our blood by looking for antibodies
you could tell if somebody had seen that
virus even if they were no longer
shedding that virus in Boston Goleta is
working with Duane Wiesman to study
hundreds of blood samples to see who has
antibodies and if they make people and
moontak over 19 are bringing
we actually delivered samples to gleep
when we were filming with her okay
that's a good absolute how I lucked into
getting an antibody test so your blood
sample was initially received by our
laboratory and then we ran your plasma
samples against the virus and we asked
which antibodies are binding to the
virus and so when we check your sample
we found that there was no binding to
any of these I see that you are a bit
disappointed by this I had felt a little
sick back in March and the thinking was
well if I had been exposed then maybe I
already got it
I'm already immune I should say too that
even though we want to have antibodies
to this virus it's not clear the degree
to which having antibodies to the virus
will protect us from an infection it is
not that just by having a positive
antibody test that you are automatically
ready to re-enter the population the
last thing we want to do is to tell
somebody that they have antibodies have
them re-enter the workplace have them
re-- exposed and for reasons that we
cannot completely understand develop
much more severe disease so if these
antibody tests can't tell if someone is
immune what are they good for we don't
understand how many people in the
general population have truly been
exposed or infected even without their
own knowledge what we really need is
these tools that would give us a much
better understanding of who had been
exposed and who was infected my test was
just part of a larger study the only
thing it tells me personally is that I
was not exposed but getting this sort of
information on a larger scale will tell
us how widespread the viruses and we'll
also start to understand what that
precious immunity actually looks like
for that lots of people need to be
tested and tracked to understand which
antibodies and at which levels confer
immunity and for how long so let's say
hypothetically speaking we could get a
group of a hundred individuals that all
had antibodies to this novel coronavirus
and let's say that we could group them
into those who had high levels or medium
levels or low levels and let's say we
could study them over a given period of
time we could look at the number of
infections that reoccur individuals in
these different antibody categories and
what are the characteristics of an
antibody that makes somebody immune to
the infection this type of analysis
allows us to do now for the first time
is to define the absolute threshold or
the level of antibody that gives you
complete protection from disease that is
if antibodies took over nineteen do
indeed make us immune at all which most
experts agree is likely but not certain
so when will we have these Mindi tests
when will I be able to go to the grocery
store and know that I can touch
everything on the shelves right I know
that's your dream to go to the grocery
store and everything because whatever
you can that's just the thing you want
to do now right it will take some time
to make sure we understand the quality
of the antibody tests and to understand
what it really means to have antibodies
to the virus until we understand what
really it means to have antibodies it's
good to play it safe I get it hearing we
don't know yet is not a very satisfying
conclusion I wish my blood test could
have told me I'm safe we all want to get
back to normal but before we can do that
we need to learn a lot more about this
virus and scientists all around the
world are racing to do just that so for
now most public health experts say
staying home is the best way to keep
yourself and those who
stay home safe and if you want to learn
more about what scientists are
discovering check out Nova's decoding
Cove at 19