Exercise and COVID-19 Viral T-cell Immunity

Study Summary

Viruses are a major health problem for the general public and at risk populations. Normally, detection of antibody titers is the gold standard for determining the effectiveness of the immune system following natural or vaccine caused immunization. However, determining the effectiveness of other parts of the immune system are less common due to the difficulties with testing. Furthermore, there is a critical need to address other therapies in case vaccination is not successful in immuncompromised populations. Exercise has been shown to increase the strength of the immune system against many types of viruses and therefore could be simple way to improve immunity against the COVID-19 virus. The aim of this research is to determine the effects of exercise on anti-viral immunity against many types of common viruses before and after vaccination. We hypothesize that exercise will enhance the anti-viral immunity before and after vaccination. Up to 30 healthy volunteers (age 18-44 years) will be recruited to participate in this study. For completion of Aim 1, three visits are needed totaling around 7 hours of the patient's time and for Aim 2, three visits are needed totaling around 4.5 hours of the patient's time. The initial visit will be for pre-screening and if deemed healthy enough to participate, an exercise test to determine the VO2 max of the participant will be conducted. The following visits will require a trained phlebotomist to insert an in-dwelling catheter and participants will undergo a 20-minute incremental exercise trial. Approximately 50mL of blood will be collected at four different timepoints: at rest, 60% VO2 max, 80% VO2 max, and 1-hr post-exercise. All four collected blood samples will be used to expand viral specific T-cells and compare IFN-γ rele

Conditions Studied

Interventions

• BIOLOGICAL COVID-19 Vaccine

Study Locations (1)