If the COVID-19 pandemic has done one thing, it’s made us all more familiar with some of the important players in the immune system. Antibodies, B cells, and T cells are among the best known parts of the body’s response to a virus like SARS-CoV-2, but they don’t act alone.
A paper published in the Journal on August 18, Cellular, scientists report that innate immune cells—a critical part of the immune system activated to battle COVID-19—remain altered for at least a year after infection. These cells may be responsible for some of the lingering COVID-19 symptoms, but further studies are required to confirm that.
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The innate immune system is the body’s first line of defense, made up of general pathogen-fighting cells that are designed to recognize and fight off all kinds of pathogens, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites in a non-specific way. B cells and T-cells are customized to recognize and remember specific pathogens and only those pathogens. Steven Josefowicz and his colleagues at Weill Cornell Medical College found that ,…
