Researchers from New York City-based Mount Sinai have created a population-scalable rapid blood test that measures the strength and duration of a person's immunity to COVID-19.
The test will allow large-scale monitoring of a population's immunity and the effectiveness of vaccines, Mount Sinai said June 14. The test measures T-cell activation and takes less than 24 hours.
"We know that vulnerable populations don’t always mount an antibody response, so measuring T-cell activation is critical to assess the full extent of a person's immunity," Ernesto Guccione, PhD, one of the study's senior authors and an oncology and pharmacology professor at Mount Sinai's Tisch Cancer Institute, said in a news release. "Additionally, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants like omicron, which evade most of the neutralizing ability of antibodies, points to the need for assays that can measure T cells, which are more effective against emerging variants of concern."