Nature's clever way of restoring disturbed ecosystems often puts the simplistic conclusions of short-sighted scientists to shame.
I recently bumped into the following publication: ‘Repeated Omicron exposures redirect SARS-CoV-2–specific memory B cell evolution toward the latest variants’ (https://x.com/ejustin46/status/1827223937677185346?s=12).
This is what I call steric immune refocusing! It seems that scientists are finally providing more evidence about this fascinating phenomenon. What’s new to me is their interesting discovery that the redirected antibodies (Abs) don’t result from de novo synthesis, but from redirecting previously primed memory B cells away from the original strain and toward newly emerging variants. This makes a lot of sense to me, as I hypothesized that immune refocusing is driven by previously primed T helper (Th) cells (see my book at https://bit.ly/3NYokkE). So, it’s not surprising that these Th cells drive somatic hypermutation of memory B cells—previously primed by ancestral strain-based mRNA vaccines—to shift their specificity from the ancestral strain to newly emerging variants.
Although repeated vaccine breakthrough infections with Omicron descendants redirect SARS-CoV-2-(SC-2) specific memory B cell evolution toward the latest variants, the authors don’t seem to recognize that what they describe as ‘resilience to viral adaptation’ actually refers to the generation of new Abs that target more conserved spike-associated epitopes but have suboptimal neutralizing/infection-inhibiting capacity! As a result, these Abs promote viral immune escape and contribute to the (co-)emergence of more infectious (sub)variants.
It’s unbelievable that scientists go to great lengths to unravel complex immunological mechanisms but have no clue about the impact these mechanisms have on the virus’s evolutionary dynamics when they operate at the level of entire (highly C-19 vaccinated) populations. Their conclusion that their findings support the continued use of updated SC-2 vaccines is therefore short-sighted and only underscores their ignorance of the effects of collective immune pressure on the virus’s evolution.
Geert Vanden Bossche received his DVM from the University of Ghent, Belgium, and his PhD degree in Virology from the University of Hohenheim, Germany. He held adjunct faculty appointments at universities in Belgium and Germany. After his career in Academia, Geert joined several vaccine companies (GSK Biologicals, Novartis Vaccines, Solvay Biologicals) to serve various roles in vaccine R&D as well as in late vaccine development.
Geert then moved on to join the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Discovery team in Seattle (USA) as Senior Program Officer; he then worked with the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) in Geneva as Senior Ebola Program Manager. At GAVI he tracked efforts to develop an Ebola vaccine. He also represented GAVI in fora with other partners, including WHO, to review progress on the fight against Ebola and to build plans for global pandemic preparedness.
Back in 2015, Geert scrutinized and questioned the safety of the Ebola vaccine that was used in ring vaccination trials conducted by WHO in Guinea. His critical scientific analysis and report on the data published by WHO in the Lancet in 2015 was sent to all international health and regulatory authorities involved in the Ebola vaccination program. After working for GAVI, Geert joined the German Center for Infection Research in Cologne as Head of the Vaccine Development Office. He is at present primarily serving as a Biotech / Vaccine consultant while also conducting his own research on Natural Killer cell-based vaccines.
Email: info@voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org
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