With all the news of vaccines & immunity, did you know measles infections destroy immunity and cause “Immune Amnesia”, increasing risk of all other infections
Our research in ‘15 & ‘19 discovered this & the abbreviated story is written up nicely here:
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medicalrepublic.com.au/the-great-meas…
In 2015, along w Bryan Grenfell and colleagues, we discovered an exceptionally strong relationship between measles epidemics and all cause childhood mortality - following outbreaks of measles, child mortality was increased for 2-3 years.
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science.org/doi/abs/10.112…
We hypothesized then that measles was destroying B cells and plasma cells responsible for retaining immune memory. This is bc the measles virus specifically attacks immune memory cells via attachment to CD150 - a protein enriched on memory cells.
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nature.com/articles/ni010…
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A few years later, with @RLdeSwart (involved w 1st studies too and who coined the term immune amnesia) and Steve Elledge and colleagues, we followed up by profiling the immunological memory in kids before and after they were infected w measles.
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We used VirScan (developed in Elledge’s lab) to monitor 100,000’s of antibodies in children who were naturally infected w measles and, w Diane Griffin at Hopkins, experimentally infected macaque primates.
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We found that measles eraaed up to 80% of people’s existing antibody repertoire (Immune Amnesia confirmed) and that they then had to build it back through vaccines or infections - placing them at high risk for disease for years.
2nd main paper here:
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science.org/doi/abs/10.112…
Thus, through a combination of mathematics, ecological modeling, and advanced immunological techniques we were able to discover that by erasing immune memory, measles once was partially responsible for ~50% of childhood infectious disease deaths.
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Because measles used to infect >99% of humans, this makes the humble measles vaccine perhaps the most important vaccine ever to be developed as it has reduced infections from all other pathogens.
Biology never ceases to amaze!
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Here’s another (of many) news reports of the findings.
Each reporter found different approaches to write it up. Some quite creative. This one in @NPR describes it well.
npr.org/transcripts/40…
I recall really loving this reporters take on writing this story.
atlasobscura.com/articles/1970s…
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