Without samples from patients infected with Covid-19, it would have been unachievable to make the genome of SARS-CoV-2 virus genome accessible to the entire scientific community and develop effective vaccines in record times. Since the pandemic’s start, the research community has been consistently requesting these samples to conduct experiments to understand the diverse mechanisms that the virus uses to trick our immune systems.
Biobanks have played a key role in the fight against Covid-19 by allowing researchers to access the samples they needed to study the disease and develop vaccines and treatments. While the pandemic presented a big challenge to the often underfunded biobanks, it also provided an opportunity for growth in many other areas of research in the future.
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