https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/16/twitter-fritters-away-its-credibility/
I participate relatively little on social media. I am on Twitter, mainly to boost exposure of my articles, which focus primarily on scientific or medical subjects. Recently, I tweeted about an exciting new approach to creating coronavirus vaccines to protect against, among other viruses, new variants of SARS-CoV-2 (which cause COVID-19). As explained below, that’s when my bizarre clash with Twitter began.
The experimental vaccine, created in the Caltech lab of professor Pamela Bjorkman, works by presenting the immune system with pieces of the spike proteins from SARS-CoV-2 and seven other SARS-like coronaviruses, all attached to a protein nanoparticle structure. When injected into mice or monkeys, they induce the production of a broad spectrum of antibodies – immune system proteins that recognize and fight off specific pathogens – as well as cellular immune responses involving various white blood cells.
Notably, when vaccinated with this so-called “mosaic nanoparticle,” mice and nonhuman primates were protected from an additional coronavirus, SARS-CoV, that was not one of the eight represented in the nanoparticle vaccine. This extended protection is important because of the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to mutate and evade immune protection from vaccines or previous infection – which, of course, is what we’re seeing with Omicron subvariant BA.5. Professor Bjorkman and her colleagues plan soon to evaluate their vaccine in humans in a Phase 1 clinical trial.
This work is important because with the numbers of COVID-19 infections continuing at a high level in the U.S. and elsewhere, epidemiologists and virologists expect that it’s only a matter of time until new subvariants proliferate and predominate. The Caltech research offers hope that its vaccine will be effective against them.