Phlebotomist Teams Assisting Researchers in Select Cities

Transcript:

Trace Gallagher:

Well, phlebotomists just may be the unsung heroes in the fight against COVID-19. Teams of licensed phlebotomists in select cities are suiting up in protective gear and masks and heading into homes of former coronavirus patients. They are taking blood samples of those who have recovered in hopes that it will help researchers find a cure.

Trace Gallagher:

The delicate nature of patients and social distancing requirements, keeping them from having blood drawn in the hospital or at a lab. Now currently, these teams are operating in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, New York and Boston. And for a better understanding of what this entails, let’s bring in Brian Neiman, he is the CEO of Sanguine Biosciences. Brian, thank you so much for staying up with us and coming on. Your company specializes in collecting blood samples and give us an idea in layman’s terms of why that’s so vital these days.

Brian Neman:

Yeah, that’s a great question. First and foremost, thanks so much for having me on, Trace. I watch your show, and thanks for having me on. So what we’re using blood for. So in your past segments, you talked about how COVID-19, blood from patients diagnosed with COVID-19, those who have recovered that that blood is being used to treat those that are active. The reasoning behind that is because COVID-19 increases specific dangerous antigens, in cases proteins and different molecules like that in the blood. Those patients who recover produce antibodies and you see antibodies are important day to day as they’re used in vaccines and infusion medications today. So those people that recover, they are developing antibodies and the question is what are those specific antibodies that are being used to help essentially fight the virus. So the question-

Trace Gallagher:

Let me just jump in here very quickly if I can Brian because I want to play… We said in the intro that we were doing this in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, New York City. I want to play this sound bite from Dr. Anthony Fauci about vaccines and then get you to kind of fill in the blanks for us afterwards. Watch this.

Brian Neman:

Absolutely.

Dr. Anthony Fauci:

But one of the things that we are going to do that you need to understand that has been a stumbling block for previous development of vaccines, and that is even before you know something works, at risk you have to start producing it because once you know it works, you can’t say, “Great, it works. Now give me another six months to produce it.” So we’re working with a variety of companies to take that risk. We didn’t take it with Zika, that’s why we have a nice Zika vaccine but we don’t have enough to do it because there’s no Zika around. Same with SARS.

Trace Gallagher:

So these people that you collect blood samples from Brian, they all have to be screened. Are you looking for a certain type of former patient or do you want as many possible samples as you can get?

Brian Neman:

Yeah, at this point in time, the more the better because really you want as much data as possible. You want as much information to identify what are the antibodies that are responsible for fighting against this condition. So we’ve partnered with a company by the name of Vir Bio that’s developing an antibody for COVID-19 and as Dr. Fauci said they’re looking to identify the antibody and then from there we can figure out how to get it to mass scale.

Brian Neman:

But the question is how do we get those blood samples? And it’s quite difficult today. So everyone’s in self quarantine and no one’s going to the doctor’s office or hospital for a simple blood draw. So you have the issue of patients not coming into the clinic for simple blood draws and then on the other end you have researchers not getting ahold of physicians and nurses to collect blood samples. Well of course not. They’re focusing on treating patients, not the actual research.

Trace Gallagher:

Yeah. I’m curious. When you go out and the people who take these blood samples, are the doctors and scientists looking for specific information in each sample or is it the collective Brian they’re looking for? Do they glean from the collective of all these antibodies or does each one kind of open up a different door?

Brian Neman:

Yeah, the N… Yeah. So I think the first thing we have to do here is identify the commonalities across the individuals. So getting the N right now is the most important and then we can take a look once we get that N big enough, if there’s specific subsets, genetic subsets of COVID-19 and specific types of people with different demographics that are exposed to different levels. So right now the goal is getting the N as high as possible.

Trace Gallagher:

Yeah. This is just a vital need. Brian Neman, you, your company the scientists doing just such great yeoman’s work. We appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on, sir.

Brian Neman:

Absolutely.