Covid -19 new hope from blood tests

Unexpected Elements

BBC

Science

4.4 • 570 Ratings

🗓️ 10 May 2020

⏱️ 76 minutes

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Summary

Research from New York examining the blood of people who have recovered from Covid – 19 shows the majority have produced antibodies against the disease, The researchers hope to soon be able to establish whether this confers long term immunity as with more common viral infections.

And Research in Berlin and London has identified biomarkers, minute signs of the disease which may help clinicians identify who is likely to develop severe symptoms and what kind of treatment they might need.

Mutations have been much in the headlines, these are a natural processes of evolution and not just in viruses, but the term is misunderstood, two studies focusing on different aspects shed some light on what mutation in SARS-CoV-2 really means.

Also What is the smallest particle of matter? How does radiation affect our bodies? And, how is particle physics useful in our everyday lives?

We take on particle physics questions from listeners all over the world. Marnie Chesterton and Anand Jagatia get help from particle physicists from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and medical physicist Heather Williams.

(Image: People wear face masks as they cross a street in Times Square in New York City. Credit: Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	In 2019, we began investigating the disappearance of Dr. Ruzha Ignatva.
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0:29.5	Listen first on BBC Sounds. This is the science hour on the BBC World Service, a long hour
0:35.4	in which we can think about little things.
0:41.0	Little things like smoke particles which trigger smoke alarms.
0:45.3	Why am I slightly unsurprised that your smoke alarm is out of battery?
0:49.8	Um, well, that's a good start.
0:51.7	Oh, hello.
0:53.1	Yes, it does work.
0:59.2	Yes, in half an hour, crowd scientists trying to find the small things in life.
1:07.1	Smoke particles, atoms, quarks. Before that, it's science and action, where molecules in the blood are a bit of a theme for us.
1:11.7	Molecules showing who has had coronavirus and has built up immunity to it,
1:17.2	but also other molecules that can tell doctors how serious COVID-19 is becoming in a patient.
1:22.7	Timing is very critical in these situations. The earlier you can detect that this person needs more attention, this person needs a more critical care, the more likely this individual is going to recover.
1:29.2	There are exactly where these biomarker signatures can help a lot to make the right decisions at the right time.
1:34.4	And a debate over whether some lineages of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus are better at spreading or replicating than others.
1:42.9	When we think about raking a random change to a human being, we expect that to probably
1:46.2	be bad. But as soon as people hear are a mutation in the context of the virus, it instills a sense
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