9 ms·

Jesus, that's not how immunity works. Your blood is not full of antibodies for every bug you encountered in your lifetime. Mechanisms like memory cells retain k

Jesus, that's not how immunity works. Your blood is not full of antibodies for every bug you encountered in your lifetime. Mechanisms like memory cells retain knowledge of how to quickly ramp up production if the pathogen is encountered again. They even pre-mutate to anticipate future variants so immunity can get better over time.

Kiro 5y ago
Yeah, these professors and researchers are clueless. The true experts are random people on Hacker News.
- toyg 5y ago
  The modern web in a nutshell: "We've had enough of so-called 'experts', we know better!".
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ghuin 5y ago
  If this pandemic has taught us anything is that professors and researchers are as clueless as the average online commenter.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    Or that communication, journalism and divulgation (explaining to the layman) are immensely inadequate in their current common forms.
  - KarlKemp 5y ago
    If that's all you learnt from the pandemic, the professors and researchers have beaten you by orders of magnitudes, again.
  - Kiro 5y ago
    What makes you saying this any better than an antivaxxer saying it?
- rob74 5y ago
  I doubt that the professors and researchers are clueless, but I'm not so sure about the people writing articles based on this research. And even these people might not be clueless, they might simply be willing to sacrifice accuracy to get a better headline...
- Aachen 5y ago
  It wouldn't be the first time research lives in its own little bubble, (dis)proving something different from what the world wanted to know. Here, they looked into X (antibody presence) and people make it into Y (corona protection), so then yeah commenters have remarks. Edit: I read the paper and it just speaks of humoral immunity. Wikipedia: > Humoral immunity is the aspect of immunity that is mediated by macromolecules found in extracellular fluids such as secreted antibodies, complement proteins, and certain antimicrobial peptides. Antibodies I'll get to below. Complement proteins and antimicrobial peptides links go to articles saying they're part of the innate immune system (covid protection is done by the adaptive immune system if I understand it correctly). So antibodies is the relevant part: > Together with B and T cells, antibodies comprise the most important part of the adaptive immune system. They occur in two forms: one that is attached to a B cell, and the other, a soluble form, that is unattached and found in extracellular fluids such as blood plasma. Initially, all antibodies are of the first form, attached to the surface of a B cell – these are then referred to as B-cell receptors (BCR). After an antigen binds to a BCR, the B cell activates to proliferate and differentiate into either plasma cells, which secrete soluble antibodies with the same paratope, or memory B cells, which survive in the body to enable long-lasting immunity to the antigen. So B cells (well, some but not all) are responsible for long-term immunity, distinct from antibody levels. An antibody (further up the article) is a Y-shaped cell with receptors on the tips which it uses to bind to and thereby tag pathogens for other parts of the immune system to deal with or to neutralize it directly. So it doesn't sound to me like the paper talks about how long vaccination has an effect, just how long the Y-shaped receptors are in the blood for. This is the so-manyth research I've seen looking at antibodies rather than memory cells. I'd be curious why, but either way it's an incomplete way of looking at protection.
- ikerdanzel 5y ago
  I know that is sarcasm. But if you ever work in academic fields, many profs and researchers are clueless. Many will admit that. They usually will perform research that is very narrowly focused. And random people as crowd do give a smarter feedback to them. In this case, the research didn't touch on memory cells and only assume antibodies tested outside of body in lab sterile environment. Think of it as academic movie cliffhangers. These researchers will get another grants to further study these random people moot points. Then these researchers get to add more research papers with their names. They are motivated to do so with the additional grants and research papers opportunities. That is the way...in academia.
raducu 5y ago
It does for certain bugs/substances, doesn't it, though? I checked my tetanus antibodies(actually anti-neurotoxin antibodies) recently and they were 5 times over what's considered adequate and I haven't had (at that point) a booster shot in over 20 years.
- marktucker 5y ago
  Maybe you had a recent exposure?
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  It's been more than a year since I catched what I believe was light covid and periodical tests show my antibodies count never falls and even grows slightly, keeping on the level slightly above what people get after vaccines.
- dham 5y ago
  I think other countries (maybe England) are going to start recommending tetanus shot every 30 years. It's probably one of the biggest medical misconceptions that everyone has. The shot lasts for a very long time. Also the chance of getting tetanus is so low for the modern human (that doesn't work on a farm). You basically have to step on glass in soil that has cow feces all over it. Also they try to give you the tetanus shot when you have a deep cut even though it's too late at that point.
Vecr 5y ago
Delta is way too fast for that, at least if you want to prevent systemic infection and transmission. If you have low antibodies the anamnestic response squashes the tail end, but you can still transmit before that, especially in contexts like household contacts and homosexual orgies.
Saptarishi 5y ago
I think the point is, the memory cells do not retain this knowledge for extended periods of time in the case of the current Covid vaccines we have. So should we be looking for a 3rd dose, or try to fund a different vaccine?
- LurkingPenguin 5y ago
  > I think the point is, the memory cells do not retain this knowledge for extended periods of time in the case of the current Covid vaccines we have. I didn't see any mention in the article about memory T and B cells. The article only mentions antibodies. Where did you see this?
  - Saptarishi 5y ago
    Antibody remembrance comes from memory cells isnt it? I may be wrong.
    - LurkingPenguin 5y ago
      When you get infected (or vaccinated), your body produces antibodies as part of its primary response. The antibody tests that are commonly done for COVID look for these already circulating antibodies. Upon infection or vaccination, your body will also produce antibody-producing memory cells to help respond more quickly if you are infected in the future. If you want to test for these memory cells, you can't use antibody tests. You have to use specialized tests that look specifically for the memory cell responses. There are some commercially available tests, such as https://www.t-detect.com/ https://www.t-detect.com/, which looks at the T cell response. A lot of the commercially available antibody tests will fail to detect a prior infection after just a few months. T-Detect now says that its test can pick up infections that occurred 10 months ago. 10 months is probably not the limit of detection; it's just based on the amount of time T-Detect has been available to the public. Researchers have found memory T cells that respond to the original SARS-CoV virus 17 years post-infection: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z
rjzzleep 5y ago
Jesus, that's not how immunity works either. The immune system isn't one thing that learns and then works. Certain components of it work like that, but certain others do not. You can't just throw out vague statements like that and pretend it's the truth and fact. There are innate and adaptive components, but even the adaptive components, which you conveniently threw everything under, aren't as simple and straightforward as you make them out to be. For a very "basic" introduction to the adaptive immune system the wikipedia article has some reference[1]. Part of the whole ordeal about Covid is that the whole adaptive response is nowhere near as clear cut as you make it out to be and any actual epidemiologist agrees with that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_immune_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_immune_system

Kiro 5y ago

Yeah, these professors and researchers are clueless. The true experts are random people on Hacker News.

toyg 5y ago
The modern web in a nutshell: "We've had enough of so-called 'experts', we know better!".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ghuin 5y ago
If this pandemic has taught us anything is that professors and researchers are as clueless as the average online commenter.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  Or that communication, journalism and divulgation (explaining to the layman) are immensely inadequate in their current common forms.
- KarlKemp 5y ago
  If that's all you learnt from the pandemic, the professors and researchers have beaten you by orders of magnitudes, again.
- Kiro 5y ago
  What makes you saying this any better than an antivaxxer saying it?
rob74 5y ago
I doubt that the professors and researchers are clueless, but I'm not so sure about the people writing articles based on this research. And even these people might not be clueless, they might simply be willing to sacrifice accuracy to get a better headline...
Aachen 5y ago
It wouldn't be the first time research lives in its own little bubble, (dis)proving something different from what the world wanted to know. Here, they looked into X (antibody presence) and people make it into Y (corona protection), so then yeah commenters have remarks. Edit: I read the paper and it just speaks of humoral immunity. Wikipedia: > Humoral immunity is the aspect of immunity that is mediated by macromolecules found in extracellular fluids such as secreted antibodies, complement proteins, and certain antimicrobial peptides. Antibodies I'll get to below. Complement proteins and antimicrobial peptides links go to articles saying they're part of the innate immune system (covid protection is done by the adaptive immune system if I understand it correctly). So antibodies is the relevant part: > Together with B and T cells, antibodies comprise the most important part of the adaptive immune system. They occur in two forms: one that is attached to a B cell, and the other, a soluble form, that is unattached and found in extracellular fluids such as blood plasma. Initially, all antibodies are of the first form, attached to the surface of a B cell – these are then referred to as B-cell receptors (BCR). After an antigen binds to a BCR, the B cell activates to proliferate and differentiate into either plasma cells, which secrete soluble antibodies with the same paratope, or memory B cells, which survive in the body to enable long-lasting immunity to the antigen. So B cells (well, some but not all) are responsible for long-term immunity, distinct from antibody levels. An antibody (further up the article) is a Y-shaped cell with receptors on the tips which it uses to bind to and thereby tag pathogens for other parts of the immune system to deal with or to neutralize it directly. So it doesn't sound to me like the paper talks about how long vaccination has an effect, just how long the Y-shaped receptors are in the blood for. This is the so-manyth research I've seen looking at antibodies rather than memory cells. I'd be curious why, but either way it's an incomplete way of looking at protection.
ikerdanzel 5y ago
I know that is sarcasm. But if you ever work in academic fields, many profs and researchers are clueless. Many will admit that. They usually will perform research that is very narrowly focused. And random people as crowd do give a smarter feedback to them. In this case, the research didn't touch on memory cells and only assume antibodies tested outside of body in lab sterile environment. Think of it as academic movie cliffhangers. These researchers will get another grants to further study these random people moot points. Then these researchers get to add more research papers with their names. They are motivated to do so with the additional grants and research papers opportunities. That is the way...in academia.

raducu 5y ago

It does for certain bugs/substances, doesn't it, though? I checked my tetanus antibodies(actually anti-neurotoxin antibodies) recently and they were 5 times over what's considered adequate and I haven't had (at that point) a booster shot in over 20 years.

marktucker 5y ago
Maybe you had a recent exposure?
qwerty456127 5y ago
It's been more than a year since I catched what I believe was light covid and periodical tests show my antibodies count never falls and even grows slightly, keeping on the level slightly above what people get after vaccines.
dham 5y ago
I think other countries (maybe England) are going to start recommending tetanus shot every 30 years. It's probably one of the biggest medical misconceptions that everyone has. The shot lasts for a very long time. Also the chance of getting tetanus is so low for the modern human (that doesn't work on a farm). You basically have to step on glass in soil that has cow feces all over it. Also they try to give you the tetanus shot when you have a deep cut even though it's too late at that point.

Vecr 5y ago

Delta is way too fast for that, at least if you want to prevent systemic infection and transmission. If you have low antibodies the anamnestic response squashes the tail end, but you can still transmit before that, especially in contexts like household contacts and homosexual orgies.

Saptarishi 5y ago

I think the point is, the memory cells do not retain this knowledge for extended periods of time in the case of the current Covid vaccines we have. So should we be looking for a 3rd dose, or try to fund a different vaccine?

LurkingPenguin 5y ago
> I think the point is, the memory cells do not retain this knowledge for extended periods of time in the case of the current Covid vaccines we have. I didn't see any mention in the article about memory T and B cells. The article only mentions antibodies. Where did you see this?
- Saptarishi 5y ago
  Antibody remembrance comes from memory cells isnt it? I may be wrong.
  - LurkingPenguin 5y ago
    When you get infected (or vaccinated), your body produces antibodies as part of its primary response. The antibody tests that are commonly done for COVID look for these already circulating antibodies. Upon infection or vaccination, your body will also produce antibody-producing memory cells to help respond more quickly if you are infected in the future. If you want to test for these memory cells, you can't use antibody tests. You have to use specialized tests that look specifically for the memory cell responses. There are some commercially available tests, such as https://www.t-detect.com/ https://www.t-detect.com/, which looks at the T cell response. A lot of the commercially available antibody tests will fail to detect a prior infection after just a few months. T-Detect now says that its test can pick up infections that occurred 10 months ago. 10 months is probably not the limit of detection; it's just based on the amount of time T-Detect has been available to the public. Researchers have found memory T cells that respond to the original SARS-CoV virus 17 years post-infection: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z

rjzzleep 5y ago

Jesus, that's not how immunity works either. The immune system isn't one thing that learns and then works. Certain components of it work like that, but certain others do not. You can't just throw out vague statements like that and pretend it's the truth and fact. There are innate and adaptive components, but even the adaptive components, which you conveniently threw everything under, aren't as simple and straightforward as you make them out to be. For a very "basic" introduction to the adaptive immune system the wikipedia article has some reference[1]. Part of the whole ordeal about Covid is that the whole adaptive response is nowhere near as clear cut as you make it out to be and any actual epidemiologist agrees with that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_immune_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_immune_system