New data suggest that the company’s approved COVID-19 vaccine protects against different virus variants, but could be less effective against the one that originated in South Africa.
As a deadly smallpox outbreak ravaged Boston, one of the city’s leaders advocated for a preventive measure he’d learned about from Onesimus, an enslaved man.
Adenovirus vectors deliver the genetic instructions for SARS-CoV-2 antigens directly into patients’ cells, provoking a robust immune response. But will pre-existing immunity from common colds take them down?
An absence of germinal centers—which arise during infections to produce long-lived antibody-generating cells—might explain rapidly waning antibody levels in the disease.
In a small study of patients hospitalized due to SARS-CoV-2 infection, researchers report distinct early differences between the antibody responses of patients who recovered and those who died, possibly paving the way for a tool to predict disease prognosis.
Studies on SARS-CoV-2’s milder cousins hint that our immune systems are quick to forget the viruses, but it’s unclear whether the same is true for the agent that causes COVID-19.
There are emerging signs that some people might have heightened protection against SARS-CoV-2, perhaps thanks to recent infection by other coronaviruses.
These webs of chromatin and proteins, released by immune cells to control microbial infections, could serve as a therapeutic target in coronavirus infections.
There is no evidence that any of the coronavirus vaccines in development worsen a coronavirus infection rather than confer immunity to it, but the phenomenon is something scientists are closely monitoring.
