Faculty in the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology shared the latest news and insights on COVID-19 testing, vaccines, and antibody research with U.S. Congressman Bill Foster this weekend as part of the representative’s Science Saturdays discussion on Facebook Live.
“During any crisis, but especially one of public health concern, accurate and reliable data is necessary to protect citizens and now more than ever, we rely on the information we're given from scientists like Dr. Kranz and Dr. Brooke, who have done the research necessary to give us the best chance of combating this pandemic,” Rep. Foster said in his introduction.
“It's often said that our country has never faced a crisis like this, but there have been times when pandemics like the flu pandemic of 1917 really tore this country apart. The difference now is we have science to the extent that we did not back then. And that is the source of real hope for coming out of this in the best possible shape,” Foster said.
David Kranz is the Phillip A. Sharp Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and an expert in immunology. Chris Brooke is an assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and expert in viruses and how they spread. School faculty have been involved in a variety of COVID-19-related research and the campuswide effort to increase COVID-19 testing in Champaign-Urbana and throughout Illinois.
For the event, the University of Illinois researchers provided a primer on the novel coronavirus and an overview of the COVID-19 testing process and current research on antibody testing. They also explained how vaccines are developed and answered questions from the public.
