The search for people who never get COVID

Imagine being born naturally resistant to SARS-CoV-2, and never having to worry about contracting COVID-19 or spreading the virus. If you have this superpower, researchers want to meet you, to enrol you in their study. As described in a paper in Nature Immunology1 this month, an international team ofscientists has launched a global hunt for people who are genetically resistant to infection with the pandemic virus. The team hopes that identifying the genes protecting these individuals could lead to the development of virus-blocking drugs that not only protect people from COVID-19, but also prevent them from passing on the infection. Its a terrific idea, says Mary Carrington, an immunogeneticist at the FrederickNational Laboratory for Cancer Research in Bethesda, Maryland. Really, a wise thing to do.But success isnt guaranteed. If genetic resistance to the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2exists, there may be only a handful of people with this trait, says Isabelle Meyts, a paediatric immunologist and physician at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, who is part of the consortium behind the effort