The number of people diagnosed with COVID-19 continues to grow rapidly around the world, and while many companies are working on potential treatments and vaccines, there are still no approved therapies. With that said, it is worth noting that efforts to fight the novel coronavirus across a range of technologies continue to ramp up. Image Source: Getty Images. Back in January 2018, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) partnered with Adaptive Biotechnologies (NASDAQ: ADPT) -- a biotech company headquartered in Seattle, Washington -- to study how diseases affect the body's immune system. Specifically, they're attempting to map the T-cell receptors that immune cells develop to respond to specific signals of diseases (antigens). Now, they are bringing that partnership to bear on SARS-CoV-2. Next month, Adaptive Biotechnologies will start collecting blood samples from patients who have recovered from COVID-19, and, using DNA sequencing machines made by Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN) will decode their immune responses to the novel coronavirus. Microsoft's iCloud and machine learning technologies will be used to analyze the data, which will be available on an open portal to enable researchers across the world to access it. This data could help researchers understand why some people have only moderate reactions to infection with the virus, while others have much more severe -- sometimes fatal -- cases. And solving that puzzle may bring us closer to developing successful treatments for the disease. 10 stocks we like better than MicrosoftWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Microsoft wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of March 18, 2020 Teresa Kersten, an employee of LinkedIn, a Microsoft subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Prosper Junior Bakiny has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Illumina and Microsoft and recommends the following options: long January 2021 $85 calls on Microsoft and short January 2021 $115 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source