Did you ever wonder why some people don’t get sick from COVID?

I think we all have. Or we’ve all witnessed the scenario where a family gets hit with COVID but one person in the house doesn’t get any symptoms. What’s their secret?!? Well, as it turns out, it may be in their genes.

In a recent episode of Causes or Cures, I chatted with Dr. Jill Hollenbach about her recently published research on how a person’s genes may be why some people don’t get sick from COVID. In the podcast, Dr. Hollenbach explains why genes influence how a person responds to a virus; she describes the specific genes she studied and why, and she goes on to explain how she carried out her research in an easy-to-understand way. She also discusses the potential public health implications of her work, including how it may impact future vaccine development. That’s a timely topic considering the COVID virus continually evolves faster than the most up-to-date COVID vaccine.

Dr. Hollenbach is a Professor in the Department of Neurology and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. You can learn more about her and her lab here.

I hope you tune in to the episode here! We do discuss some tougher-to-understand topics in the podcast, like immunology, but I think Dr. Hollenbach does a a great job in making it easier to digest. As the host, I did my best to add clarity where I could, but if there is something you don’t understand, please let me know.  Ican try to explain, and it will at least help me make future episodes more understandable.

After you listen to the episode on why some people don’t get sick from COVID, I invite you to check out some of the other recent podcasts, such as:

Starving in Siberia, One woman’s last-ditch effort to heal herself from chronic lyme disease: Click here to learn more.

Also check out some of my musings from the public health communication portion of the blog, like this one which describes the war on misinformation and the elephants on the battlefield.

You can listen to the Causes or Cures anywhere podcasts are found. If you DO happen to listen on Apple and can leave a review, I’d great appreciate it. Reviews help so much in getting independent podcasts discovered. Here’s the link to Causes or Cures on Apple.

Thanks much, everyone. See you on the podcast or see you on social media!

Eeks X