The worldwide race for a vaccine is still going on and now there are over 100 COVID-19 vaccines that are going through trials.
Most of these proposed vaccines focus on the use of antibodies, a powerful immune-system weapon, but there are also studies of T-cells that can kill the COVID-19 virus itself.
Antibodies
These are produced by the immune-system in response to the foreign material in the body. 25 antibodies were identified as potentially competent in detecting the COVID-19 virus and binding to its spike protein that allows the virus to infiltrate our cells.
French, and American scientists studied an antibody from a patient infected with SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus in 2003. The antibody candidate, named S309, has been identified to neutralize COVID-19’s infection potential (published in Nature from Swiss).
T-Cells
T-cells are compounds in our immune system that helps us fight some viruses.
According to studies, killer T-cells of COVID-19 positive patients have the potential to both identify and destroy the virus and that these T-cells can also exist to some people who have never been exposed to COVID-19.
Immunologists at the University of La Jolla have also identified the presence of “Helper T-cells”, which sounds an alarm that identifies the target cell and sends biological signals to other immune cells like B-cells and antibodies.
“The immune system sees this virus and mounts an effective immune response,” Alessandro Sette, La Jolla immunologist
Andreas Thiel who was involved with a study in the University Hospital in Berlin also found out that 34% of the blood samples of 68 uninfected people had these same helper and killer T-cells. Thiel suggests that this might be because of a previous exposure to some form of coronavirus.