Put to the test
Scientist Anne Wyllie fully realised the gravity of Covid-19 only when young, fit athletes started producing harrowing test results usually associated with old and seriously ill patients. Some of the sports stars she’d tested for the virus were asymptomatic, but aft er positive tests, further medical checks revealed scarring on their hearts or damaged lungs – conditions that will hamper or shorten their sports careers and lives.
A University of Auckland graduate who grew up on the city’s North Shore, Wyllie did postgraduate study at McGill University in Canada and completed her PhD at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands before being lured to Yale University in 2017. She is now one of the leaders of the team at Yale’s school of public health who developed Saliva-Direct, a test that is being
