SARS-CoV-2–Fighting T Cells Found in Recovered Patients

While the finding doesn’t prove people become immune to the virus after infection, it is good news for vaccine development.

Written byShawna Williams

| 2 min read

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ABOVE: The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein
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Even as researchers around the world rush to develop a vaccine against the virus that causes COVID-19, and some pin their hopes on the idea that enough people will recover from infections to achieve herd immunity in the meantime, questions about whether exposure to the virus induces immunity to it have lingered. If the virus itself does not prompt immunity, a vaccine against it might not either.

Although it doesn’t provide a conclusive answer, a study published yesterday (May 14) in Cell appears to be good news on the immunity front. Researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California took blood from 20 adults who’d recovered from COVID-19 and exposed the samples to proteins from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. All of the patients had CD4+ helper T cells that recognized the virus’s spike protein, and 70 percent of them had CD8+ killer ...

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Meet the Author

Shawna Williams
Shawna was an editor at The Scientist from 2017 through 2022. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Colorado College and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Previously, she worked as a freelance editor and writer, and in the communications offices of several academic research institutions. As news director, Shawna assigned and edited news, opinion, and in-depth feature articles for the website on all aspects of the life sciences. She is based in central Washington State, and is a member of the Northwest Science Writers Association and the National Association of Science Writers.
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