A recent study looked at the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 in young adults who had asymptomatic or mild cases of the virus. The study found that the virus triggered the immune system to produce both B and T immune cells, which are important for neutralizing the virus. The study focused on 65 participants, analyzing their immune response to the Spike (S), Nucleocapsid (N), and Membrane (M) proteins. Researchers found that the T cell response was highly correlated with the level of antibodies against the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD), S, and N. However, while the levels of serum antibodies decreased over time, the T cell response remained stable for up to four months. The study suggests that future COVID-19 vaccines should focus on inducing stronger T cell responses to help sustain the generation of effective neutralizing antibodies.
The study was conducted by researchers at Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp, a biotech company specializing in immune system analysis. The company has been actively working on developing diagnostic tests and sequencing technologies to help understand and combat COVID-19.
The lead author of the study is Dr. Harm van Bakel, an Associate Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. van Bakel was responsible for overseeing the computational analysis of the immune responses in the study. He has extensive experience in studying the genetics of human diseases and has previously worked on viral epidemics, including the Zika virus.
