Verily, Alphabet's life sciences company, is adapting its Project Baseline study to also examine how the immune system reacts to SARS-CoV-2 infections, CNBC reports.
Verily launched Project Baseline in 2017. The project aimed to analyze genetic data, blood samples, imaging, and more from 10,000 volunteers to get a sense of what a healthy person looks like.
According to CNBC, Verily has already launched coronavirus testing sites across California and has a new initiative dubbed Baseline Antibody Research through which people who sought virus testing from the company can also seek antibody testing. Participants in the project will also provide three blood samples and nasal samples over the course of approximately 10 weeks for analysis.
The firm notes that participants don't have to have had COVID-19 to participate, as they are also interested in mental health and lifestyle data from healthy people. "Such information from healthy individuals can help quantify the public health impact of the disease, and provide a basis for better understanding the changes caused by COVID-19," a Verily blog post adds.