How infected are we?

We all know people around us who are constantly sick - even during the summer. We also know people who never see a doctor, and can treat a family member or friend with COVID-19 or influenza and remain healthy. Why are some people more sick than others? And maybe some of those ‘healthy’ people are really only asymptomatically infected - i.e. they don’t have any symptoms even though they are sick and can infect others? To address these questions and to identify the characteristics of protective immune responses, we are conducting multiple clinical studies following healthy adults across 9-12 months, and collecting detailed infection histories and biological samples (bloods, swabs etc.) The samples from these studies are then used to extensively profile the immune system of each individual at multiple timepoints before and after documented infections.