WBZ | CBS Boston – Lara Woolfson’s COVID-19 story and her participation with Sanguine for her in-home blood sample collection.
Interviewed by Liam Martin, WBZ | CBS Boston
Transcript:
Headline News:
Live from the Channel 4 Studios in Boston, this is WBZ news at 5:30.
Liam Martin:
Well for a photographer from Boston who has already recovered from the coronavirus is hoping that her fight with it will help others recover as well. Today she donated blood so that researchers can use her antibodies in the development of a treatment or a vaccine.
Lara Woolfson:
I’ve got my little bandaid on from my experience and I’m just happy to help. I hope it helps with something.
Liam Martin:
This is how Lara Woolfson spent her morning, with the nurse collecting her blood. These empty tubes soon filled with samples that could help researchers find a way to fight COVID-19.
Lara Woolfson:
I was one of the first people in Boston to get it.
Liam Martin:
Lara believes she contracted the virus at a large gathering back in early March. She has fully recovered and her blood is just what researchers are looking for. She contacted a company called Sanguine Biosciences, a company that collect samples from recovered COVID patients and shares them with researchers.
Lara Woolfson:
They had made a post looking for people that had been recovered. They were specifically looking for people that have been recovered for two weeks or longer. I’m assuming since I had it so early in the city, I’m one of the first waves of people who can donate.
Liam Martin:
According to Lara, her samples might be used to help develop a vaccine for COVID-19 or plasma treatments that use antibodies to help those whose immune systems cannot fight the virus. A treatment that Dr. Wayne Marasco of Harvard Medical School says show some promise.
Dr. Wayne Marasco:
There’s good science behind it and I think anecdotal cases that have been published largely out of China have shown therapeutic benefits for the people that have received it.
Liam Martin:
Lara is grateful to find a way to make her recovery work for others.
Lara Woolfson:
Definitely knowing that I could be helping towards finding a vaccine for COVID-19 was a huge motivating factor.
Liam Martin:
Now, Dr. Marasco says that the plasma treatment would be somewhat involved for the donor, but researchers are also working on creating a pill form of that antibody treatments that could go a long way toward helping in this fight, Paula.
Paula:
I certainly hope after all those patients have been through, that they find a way to make this work. Liam, thanks.