1) If we want to generate difficult viral escape mutants in the lab (e.g. for epitope mapping), we subject the virus to low antibody pressure and then slowly move up. A little bit like after one vaccine dose. I think it would be good to give the second dose as soon as possible.
2) I don't know if 12 weeks is going to be a huge issue, but that time frame should be minimized as much as possible. Also, there are good reasons for giving the second dose. It is likely that the second dose is needed to generate long lived and strong immunity.
3) But it will likely also drive affinity maturation of antibodies. This will make the antibodies stronger, and potentially will allow them to better cope with new variants.
4) It also depends on how much virus is circulating. If virus circulation is low, the 12 week window might not be a big problem. But if virus circulation is sky high (like right now in the UK), it is not a good idea. My 2 cents.
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1) We recently published a serosurvey in Nature Communications that nicely describes the development of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody titers in the New York City population.
2) This was a very nice collaboration between Harm van Bakel's lab, Mia Sordillo, @VivianaSimonLab and @AubreeGordonPhD , spearheaded by @abramwagner and of course first author Juan Manuel Carreño who is leading my serology core.
3) For this study, we measured antibody titers to spike from the February 2020 to fall of 2023 throughout different waves of SARS-CoV-2 and the rollout of vaccines. Several hundred random leftover samples from our hospital were assessed for spike titers every week (>55 000 total).
1) I am reviewing some of the literature re antigenic distances between XBB.1.5 nd JN.1 and how well the XBB.1.5 vaccine works right now. I'll post random papers here. Just for nerds. (this is not a story, just a bunch of papers).
2) Interesting paper from Qatar re protection of infection from JN.1 reinfection. Take home message is probably that JN.1 is antigenically distant from XBB.1.5. medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
3) Nice paper from the Netherlands (@dirkeggink) looking at XBB.1.5 vaccine effectiveness against XBB.1.5 and JN.1. Take home message: Vaccine works. medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
1) Our preprint describing 3 years of our PARIS study is live. There are a few interesting observations I wanted to highlight. This was the work of a large team but the lead is really @VivianaSimonLab medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
2) First, here is an overview of the spike titers of all the study time points. We had 501 individuals in the study and measure their anti-spike binding antibodies on a regular basis.
3) The first take home message is: Antibody decay after mRNA vaccination is biphasic. First a steep drop, then a stabilization phase. The graph here shows titers after the primary immunization series. Blue is previously naive individuals, orange is hybrid immune.
1) I feel this paper by Mattias Forsell's group is often overlooked but shows something very important: Binding antibody to SARS-CoV-2 spike - in the absence of strong neutralizing antibodies to a new variant - predict protection from mortality. .thelancet.com/journals/lanep…
2) Individuals with the lowest antibody titer have the highest risk, individuals with higher titers are protected. Of course, we are not talking about protection from infection or protection from symptomatic disease by binding, non-neutralizing antibodies here, but protection....
3) ...from severe outcomes. Why is this important? Neutralizing antibodies (which likely are the main protective factor when it comes to protection from infection or symptomatic disease) often drop steeply against new variants while binding antibodies are in most cases.....
1) In a recent study with @gabagagan, Anass Abbad, Juan Manuel Carreño and @VivianaSimonLab we wanted to see how much crossreactivity exists in the post-COVID era to spikes beyond SARS-CoV-2. We expressed all the spikes shown in the tree below and got going.
2) We ran ELISAs with longitudinal samples from people who had received the primary vaccination series of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines including naive individuals (grey) and people who previously had SARS-CoV-2 infections (black).
3) Titers actually went up for all sarbecoviruses and even for most other betacoronaviruses (with the exception of nobecoviruses where there was no increase in reactivity for one of the two spikes tested).
1) I just talked with students in class about similar situations in France and Spain in the last few years. Aedes mosquitos are present in the US and Europe and are a nice vector for dengue. Once the virus is established in local mosquito populations its hard to get rid off.
2) And climate change helps the mosquitos to move north, extending the potential range for viruses like dengue, chikungunya, Zika etc. This is also happening for some tick species, e.g. Hyalomma ticks in Europe which can carry Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus.