Why Viruses Like COVID-19 Can Reinfect Hosts, Evade the Immune Response
Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School found that humans tend to produce antibodies that target the same viral regions repeatedly, called “public epitopes.” Using a tool called VirScan, the team analyzed blood samples from the U.S., Peru, and France, and discovered 376 commonly targeted epitopes. These public epitopes allow viruses to mutate a single amino acid and reinfect previously immune populations. The findings have significant implications for understanding immunity, predicting…