The cells that can give you super-immunity

[Jilly_in_VA]

I
In October 2020, a team of virologists at the Rockefeller University in New York embarked on a year-long project to try and anticipate which dangerous forms of Covid-19 might emerge in future.

While the spectre of new variants was yet to preoccupy the minds of political leaders and citizens around the globe, scientists were keenly aware that Covid-19 would almost certainly mutate in ways that could make it more infectious and virulent.

The aim of Rockefeller's scientists was to create an artificial version of the Covid-19 spike protein – the protein the virus uses to penetrate our cells – that could evade all known types of protective antibodies that had been found in the blood of Covid-19 survivors.

Over the next 12 months, they played around with different combinations of mutations on the surface of the spike protein until they found a set of 20 which appeared to make it particularly resilient to anything the immune system might be able to throw at it. To test this lab-grown "Frankenspike" out, they inserted it into what virologists call a pseudotype virus, one which has been engineered so it does not have enough genetic material to replicate, allowing scientists to tweak it and understand how it behaves without any risk of it escaping.

Initially things played out as expected. When the virologists exposed their newly engineered virus to blood samples taken from people who had either recovered from Covid-19, or been vaccinated against the disease, it expertly eluded every antibody they had.

But then something surprising happened. When they tested it on the blood of people who had recovered from Covid-19 in 2020 and then also been vaccinated many months later, their antibodies were able to bind to the virus and completely neutralise it.

"This was really incredible to see," says Michel Nussenzweig, professor of molecular immunology at the Rockefeller University, and one of the scientists involved in the project. "One of the biggest things we've learnt from the pandemic is how our immune system response differs depending on whether we've been naturally infected, vaccinated, or both." (Of course, this does not mean it's a good idea to become infected intentionally, since every infection comes with risks.)

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220210-the-cells-that-can-give-you-super-immunity
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