Durham, NC, United States A team of Duke Health scientists has identified why women are better at fighting severe symptoms of COVID-19.
Their research shows that women have a special immune cell that is very good at fighting infections in lung tissue.
Because COVID affects the lungs, these cells are well-equipped to ward off the virus before it causes breathing problems.
According to scientists, these cells are more common in the blood of healthy women than healthy men.
WRAL spoke to the Duke researchers behind this discovery to understand how it could help in the fight against the pandemic.
Dr. Daniel Saban, associate professor at the Duke Division of Immunology, says his experiment began last spring.
He took a closer look at blood samples and found that healthy women have more of a specific white blood cell than healthy men – these are called MAIT cells.
These cells are important for immune defense.
In COVID patients, the cells accumulated in the lungs to fight the COVID infection.
This discovery could lead to research on how MAIT cells provide infection protection.
“We do not yet know exactly how MAIT cells provide the protection,” Saban said. “But by finding it, it can also provide therapeutic targets for future drugs.”
The discovery could also advance research on how these cells can be strengthened in men.