Fox 19: UC doctor part of team developing new COVID-19 antibody test

Steve Woodle, MD, William A. Altemeier Chair in Research Surgery at the UC College of Medicine, is part of a national team working on a new test that can determine the effectiveness of antibodies against COVID-19 and also does a better job of reducing false positives in detecting the novel coronavirus.

“There’s scientific evidence that is accumulating, indicating that some antibodies can be good for you and some antibodies may be bad for you,” Woodle, a UC Health transplant surgeon, told Fox 19. “This test looks at five different types of antibodies and picks out particular combinations that exist in people who get well and people who struggle with recovering from the virus.”

The new test developed by a team of researchers at UC, Emory University and Toronto’s University Health Network along with Thermo Fisher Scientific can reduce the number of false positives for COVID-19, possibly triggered because a patient has antibodies for a common cold.

“No other test has that built into it that’s currently available in the market, but this test brings that,” Woodle told viewers.

Listen to the interview on Fox 19.

Learn more about Dr. Woodle’s research at UC.