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54-year-old American writer John Hollis believed he was going to contract COVID-19 when a friend he shared a house with became infected and seriously ill in April 2020.
“I was very scared for two weeks,” says John Hollis. “For two weeks I waited for the disease to strike me, but it never happened.”
Hollis just thought he was lucky he didn’t get the disease.
But in July 2020, quite casually, Hollis referred to this coexistence with a very ill person in a conversation with Dr. Lance Liotta, a professor at George Mason University in the United States, where Hollis works on tasks of communication.
Liotta, who is researching ways to fight the coronavirus, invited Hollis to volunteer in a scientific study of the virus in development at the university.
So, Hollis discovered that not only had he contracted COVID-19, but that his body had super antibodies that made him definitely immune to the diseaseIn other words, the viruses entered his body, but could not infect his cells and make him sick.
“It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life,” Hollis admits.
“A gold mine”
“We collected Hollis’ blood at different times and now it’s a gold mine to study different ways of attacking the virus,” says Liotta.
In most people, antibodies designed to fight the virus attack proteins in the coronavirus spicules, sharp formations on the surface of Sars-Cov-2 that help it infect human cells.
Hollis’ antibodies are different: they attack various parts of the virus and kill it quickly.
“The patient’s antibodies adhere to the spicules and the virus cannot adhere to the cells and infect them,” Liotta explains.
The problem is, when a person first comes in contact with the virus, it takes time for their body to produce these specific antibodies, which allows the virus to spread.
But Hollis’ antibodies are different: They attack various parts of the virus and kill it quickly.
They are so powerful that Hollis is immune to even newer variants of the coronavirus.
“You can dilute their antibodies one in a thousand and they will continue to kill 99% of the virus“, asevera Liotta.
Scientists are studying these superantibodies from Hollis and other patients like him in hopes of learning how to improve vaccines against the disease.
“I know I’m not the only person who has antibodies like this, I am only one of the few people to have been discovered“Hollis said.
Racial prejudice in surveys
However, these types of discoveries sometimes don’t happen due to racial bias in scientific research: most are made with white patients.
Black participation in education is often much lower than their representation in society.
“There is a long history of exploitation (of black patients) that makes the African American community wary when it comes to participating in research,” reveals Jeff Kahn, professor at the Institute of Biotics John Hopkins University.
“It is understandable that there is such mistrust,” he admits.
One of the best-known experiments involving African Americans is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study: For more than 40 years, US government-funded scientists have studied black men with syphilis in Alabama without providing drugs. for disease.
“Over the years during the study, antibiotics became a widely available remedy and weren’t offered to these people,” he says.
“The investigators lied about what was done to them and have been refused treatment in the name of research», Condemns Kahn.
“When the Tuskegee study came to light, rules and regulations were established for research involving humans, which have been in place since the 1970s.”
This story is one of the reasons why a segment of the population, which has been severely affected by the pandemic, is often reluctant to participate in studies or get vaccinated.
The black population is strongly affected by the coronavirus and we must ensure that it receives “the benefits of the innovations that develop”, say the experts.
“We want to make sure that the communities most affected receive the benefits of the innovations being developed,” says Kahn.
“And for that, these populations must also be part of the studies“.
“We must pay tribute to these people, victims of the Tuskegee study, by starting a process to prevent this from happening again.” And also to save lives, especially in the African American community, which has been hit hard by the pandemic. ”, Argues Hollis.
“Protecting each other is a duty to ourselves and to the people we love,” the writer abandoned.
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