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Source: https://www.statnews.com/2021/04/16/...ould-be-worse/
Next-generation Covid-19 vaccines are supposed to be better. Some experts worry they could be worse
By Helen Branswell April 16, 2021
With Covid-19 vaccines, the world hopes to beat back the virus that causes the disease. But some scientists are increasingly concerned that, because of a quirk of our own biology, future iterations of the vaccines might not always be quite as effective as they are today.
The concerns stem from a phenomenon that is known as imprinting, sometimes called original antigenic sin, which is believed to affect how we respond to some pathogens.
In short, when your body is introduced to a particular threat for the first time ? either through infection or a vaccine ? that encounter sets your immune system?s definition of that virus and what immune weapons it needs to detect and protect against it in the future.
That imprint can be helpful. In the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, elderly adults were protected by immune responses they?d generated more than half a century earlier, in childhood, through encounters with a related virus. But it can also interfere with your body?s ability to mount responses against strains that have evolved from the one you were first exposed to.
In the case of Covid, some scientists are concerned that the immune system?s reaction to the vaccines being deployed now could leave an indelible imprint, and that next-generation products, updated in response to emerging variants of the SARS-CoV-2, won?t confer as much protection.
Michael Worobey, who was been involved in groundbreaking research on imprinting with influenza, said he worries the responses to first-generation Covid-19 vaccines will prove to be ?a high-water mark? for people?s immune responses to these inoculations...
Next-generation Covid-19 vaccines are supposed to be better. Some experts worry they could be worse
By Helen Branswell April 16, 2021
With Covid-19 vaccines, the world hopes to beat back the virus that causes the disease. But some scientists are increasingly concerned that, because of a quirk of our own biology, future iterations of the vaccines might not always be quite as effective as they are today.
The concerns stem from a phenomenon that is known as imprinting, sometimes called original antigenic sin, which is believed to affect how we respond to some pathogens.
In short, when your body is introduced to a particular threat for the first time ? either through infection or a vaccine ? that encounter sets your immune system?s definition of that virus and what immune weapons it needs to detect and protect against it in the future.
That imprint can be helpful. In the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, elderly adults were protected by immune responses they?d generated more than half a century earlier, in childhood, through encounters with a related virus. But it can also interfere with your body?s ability to mount responses against strains that have evolved from the one you were first exposed to.
In the case of Covid, some scientists are concerned that the immune system?s reaction to the vaccines being deployed now could leave an indelible imprint, and that next-generation products, updated in response to emerging variants of the SARS-CoV-2, won?t confer as much protection.
Michael Worobey, who was been involved in groundbreaking research on imprinting with influenza, said he worries the responses to first-generation Covid-19 vaccines will prove to be ?a high-water mark? for people?s immune responses to these inoculations...