A Biobank to Identify Biomarker Signatures Related to COVID-19 Infection

This study is a collaboration with investigators from the School of Medicine at Wake Forest University. To be eligible for this investigation you need to be a student, staff, or faculty at Elon University and not previously identified as being infected by COVID-19. Participation in this investigation is voluntary and does not impact your status within the University.

For more information about this study, email Melissa Murfin or learn more about the researchers.

Length and Purpose

The purpose of this study is to determine if there are any characteristic changes in your blood that either affect your risk of being infected with COVID-19 or influence the severity of infection should you contract the virus. We will follow you over the academic school year, but each visit will last about 15 minutes. You will visit the Gerald Francis Center at Elon for blood draws approximately 10 times for this investigation. You will also be asked to complete a daily record of any symptoms you may be experiencing using an app.

What to Expect

If you agree to take part in this study, you will be asked to:

  1. Complete an online questionnaire that will provide us with some basic information about your health and COVID-19 history. It will take you approximately 20 minutes to complete this questionnaire.
  2. Report to the Francis Center once every four to eight weeks for the next year to have a small amount of blood collected by venipuncture. Each one of these sessions will last about 15 minutes. The blood will be processed and stored until it can be evaluated for various biomarkers that may be associated with COVID-19 infection.
  3. Complete a daily assessment of your health symptoms and COVID-19 exposure using the SneezApp. Each assessment on this app can be completed in less than two minutes.