Tuesday’s report, from tests on more than 30,000 people in Iceland, is the most extensive work yet on the immune system’s response to the virus and is good news for efforts to develop vaccines. If a vaccine can spur production of long-lasting antibodies like natural infection does, it gives hope that “immunity to this unpredictable and highly contagious virus may not be fleeting,” independent experts from Harvard University and the U.S. National Institutes of Health wrote in a commentary published with the study in the New England Journal of Medicine. The new study was done by Reykjavik-based deCODE Genetics, a subsidiary of the U.S. biotech company Amgen, with several hospitals, universities and health officials in Iceland.
Tuesday’s report, from tests on more than 30,000 people in Iceland, is the most extensive work yet on the immune system’s response to the virus and is good news for efforts to develop vaccines. If a vaccine can spur production of long-lasting antibodies like natural infection does, it gives hope that “immunity to this unpredictable and highly contagious virus may not be fleeting,” independent experts from Harvard University and the U.S. National Institutes of Health wrote in a commentary published with the study in the New England Journal of Medicine. The new study was done by Reykjavik-based deCODE Genetics, a subsidiary of the U.S. biotech company Amgen, with several hospitals, universities and health officials in Iceland.