This misguided immune response may exacerbate severe COVID-19. (Dexamethasone, the steroid President Donald Trump took after his COVID diagnosis, has proved effective in some people with severe COVID to tamp down this over-exuberant immune response.) In the typical response to a virus, cells known as B immune cells make antibodies that recognize pieces of viral RNA from the virus and lock onto them. Woodruff and his colleagues reported earlier this month that some people with severe COVID-19 also have such unrefined B immune cells. “And that may have something to do with autoantibody memory.”Marshak-Rothstein, Iwasaki and dozens of other teams are closely studying the immune response to the coronavirus.

Source: bd News24 October 28, 2020 03:56 UTC