Raleigh, North Carolina – A team of Duke Health scientists has found out why women are better at fighting the severe symptoms of COVID-19.
Her research shows that women have a special immune cell that is very good at fighting lung tissue infections.
Because COVID affects the lungs, these cells are well equipped to fight the virus before it causes respiratory problems.
The scientists found that these cells were more common in the blood of healthy women than in healthy men.
WRAL spoke with Duke researchers behind this discovery to understand how it might help in the battle against the pandemic.
Dr. Daniel Saban, an associate professor in Duke’s Department of Immunology, says his experiment began last spring.
He looked closely at the blood samples and found that healthy women had more than one white blood cell than healthy men, which are called MAIT cells.
These cells are important for immune defense.
In patients with COVID, cells gathered in the lungs to fight COVID infection.
This discovery could lead to research into how MAIT cells provide protection against infection.
“We still don’t know exactly how MAIT cells offer protection,” Saban said. “But in finding it, this can also provide therapeutic targets for future remedies.”
The discovery could also drive research into how these cells can be potentiated in men.