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News

15 Nov 2021

Setting it Straight: Viruses, Vaccines and COVID-19: possibilities on the vaccine front

Last week we summarised what the SARS-CoV-2 virus is, and how it gets into our cells by attaching via the RBD (receptor binding domain) on its surface ‘spike’ (S) protein to the ACE2 molecules expressed on the outer (plasma) membrane of cells throughout our body. Now we’ll review the various vaccines, both existing and notional, that are designed to stimulate the production of antibodies (or immunoglobulins, Igs) that will block that RBD/ACE2 docking event while also ‘labelling’ the SARS-CoV-2 particles (virions) for possible destruction by other ‘innate’ defence mechanisms, like phagocytosis and complement binding (#19#20). For now, we’ll ignore any ‘adverse events’ related to the vaccines as it’s my intent to discuss these later as a direct comparison with what happens for infection (the disease we call COVID-19) versus vaccination.