Mutation...

 

Wonderful. Awesome. Fantastic. Those are the adjectives Emory University researcher Mehul Suthar used to describe the immunity levels seen just after the second dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.

But Suthar and colleagues at Emory’s Vaccine Center found that stunning immunity dulled after six months but not to such an extent that the vaccine was ineffective. In fact, Suthar estimated that in three age groups studied – 18-to-55, 56-to-70 and 71-and-older – neutralizing antibodies should linger for one to two years.

“The 484 mutation has been identified by several groups, that it seems to escape antibody responses,” Suthar said. “Other groups are finding that mutations within what’s called the N-terminal domain of that spike protein also encode for escape antibodies.”