A lucky few seem 'resistant' to Covid-19. Scientists ask why

University of Sao Paolo's Mayana Zatz’s work is part of a growing effort to identify factors that may make people resistant to Covid, with the goal of finding clues to treatments, as well as understanding resistance against viruses more broadly. Other scientists have run lab experiments using CRISPR genome-editing technology to disable genes, in search of ones that could be manipulated to perhaps protect those of us not fortunate enough to have natural resistance against the coronavirus. “The biological implications [of identifying a resistance gene] are important because it will provide one more piece in the assembly of the puzzle of the pathogenesis of Covid,” said pediatric immunologist Jean-Laurent Casanova of Rockefeller University, who has been studying the genes involved in Covid-19 severity, but is now shifting to look at elements of resistance.