Comment on Vaccine breakthrough means no more chasing strains

• runner_g@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I am a molecular biologist, and it kinda works this way. B cells are called memory cells because they hold onto that “memory” of the invader for a really long time. You probably haven’t had an MMR or a Tetanus vaccine in 10+ years because the body is really good at remembering. But we have to get flu boosters every year because the flu mutates so rapidly that traditional b cells won’t recognize the flu after a year of mutating. (RNA viruses can’t correct their mutations so they change much faster than bacteria or DNA viruses). RNAi was still pretty new when I was in school and I haven’t kept up with the research so I can’t speak to it’s effectiveness at long term immunity.

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  • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I know enough about that, the part I was skeptical about though was the assumption that if a mouse is immune for 90 days, a human would be immune for 10 years.

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    • runner_g@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      And you are absolutely right to be skeptical about that, that is a crazy level of extrapolation.

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• Anticorp@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It is good that you recognize that you don’t know enough to dispute it. Now just recognize that people who do know enough aren’t disputing it.

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• kemsat@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I assumed it had to do with heartbeats. Mice hearts beat much faster than human hearts, and I think of the heartbeat like a computer’s clock or an engine’s RPM. If you increase that, the rate of everything else increases.

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