diff --git a/_posts/2024-03-07-Conjecture-the-maximum-NAb-titer.md b/_posts/2024-03-07-Conjecture-the-maximum-NAb-titer.md index 934e2d1..2a19d2d 100644 --- a/_posts/2024-03-07-Conjecture-the-maximum-NAb-titer.md +++ b/_posts/2024-03-07-Conjecture-the-maximum-NAb-titer.md @@ -107,5 +107,4 @@ ____ [^3]: (My original question was could we predict the neutralizing antibody response against omicron BA.1/2 from a first dose of the bivalent vaccine in previously-immunized people by assuming it was half boosting cross-reactive wild-type antibodies and half starting a new response with omicron-specific antibodies. And the last line of my script says `# holy shirtballs, it works!` but that's a story for another day.) -[^4]: "You keep saying "boosting." But the first data point is a primary response, right? What do you mean by boosting?" Funny right? One feature of the polio model and this COVID model is that it spans the entire range of neutralizing antibody responses with a single, two-parameter equation. Not shown here is it correctly predicts polio vaccine responses after the first dose. This model shows a continuous relationship, without any evidence for different mechanisms underneath. What this says to me is that the immune system is solving one math problem---how to boost in response to a bolus of antigen across the entire range of necessary (and possible!) immunity---with multiple systems (naive immunity and priming, creation of memory, then memory responses). The math problem biology needs to solve is often much simpler than how evolution cobbled together a way to solve it, but that's a story for another day. **Edit: March 22, 2024.** I'm not the first to go down this road! Here's a very relevant passage from [this very relevant paper from 1984](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022519384800107?via%3Dihub)! -![Smith1984_discussion_grab](/assets/2024-03-07-Conjecture-the-maximum-NAb-titer/Smith1984_discussion_grab.png) +[^4]: "You keep saying "boosting." But the first data point is a primary response, right? What do you mean by boosting?" Funny right? One feature of the polio model and this COVID model is that it spans the entire range of neutralizing antibody responses with a single, two-parameter equation. Not shown here is it correctly predicts polio vaccine responses after the first dose. This model shows a continuous relationship, without any evidence for different mechanisms underneath. What this says to me is that the immune system is solving one math problem---how to boost in response to a bolus of antigen across the entire range of necessary (and possible!) immunity---with multiple systems (naive immunity and priming, creation of memory, then memory responses). The math problem biology needs to solve is often much simpler than how evolution cobbled together a way to solve it, but that's a story for another day. **Edit: March 22, 2024.** I'm not the first to go down this road! Here's a very relevant passage from [this very relevant paper from 1984](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022519384800107?via%3Dihub)! ![Smith1984_discussion_grab](/assets/2024-03-07-Conjecture-the-maximum-NAb-titer/Smith1984_discussion_grab.png)