Tom Hanks’ Blood Is Being Used to Develop Coronavirus Vaccine

After recovering from coronavirus, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have offered their blood to help develop a vaccine for coronavirus.

In early March, the couple tested positive for COVID-19 while in Australia for Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic, in which Hanks is starring. They returned home to Los Angeles at the end of March after quarantining and recovering from their symptoms.

Hanks said on NPR’s podcast “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” last week that he and Wilson volunteered to donate their blood and plasma for coronavirus research.

“A lot of the questions [are] what do we do now? Is there something we can do? And, in fact, we just found out that we do carry the antibodies,” he said. “We have not only been approached, we have said, ‘Do you want our blood? Can we give plasma?’”

The actor also said that he had a name ready if a coronavirus vaccine is made from his blood donation.

“In fact, we will be giving it now to the places that hope to work on what I would like to call the ‘Hank-ccine,” he said.

Hanks also reassured the hosts that he and Wilson are feeling “just fine” and “dandy” after their bout with the virus. In another interview last week, he said “Rita went through a tougher time than I did. She had a much higher fever. She had lost her sense of taste and sense of smell. She got absolutely no joy from food for a better part of three weeks.”