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| In a promising result for the success of vaccines against COVID-19, rhesus macaque monkeys infected with the human coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 developed protective immune responses suggesting long-lasting immunity. Getty Images |
To an evolutionary biologist, it makes perfect sense that one of our close relatives in the animal world should react to a virus that is pathological to humans in much the same way that humans do.
To a believer in special creation of all the different species by magic, there is no reason at all to expect this to be so. Indeed, what would be the sense in a supposedly intelligent designer designing lots of variations on a basic theme, even down to the details of things like an immune system as a defence against the viruses it also designed to make them sick, and just arranging it so they looked like they all shared a common ancestor?
So, it's no surprise then that scientists working for the University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine Center for Immunology and Infectious Diseases, working at the California National Primate Research Center (CNPR) at the University of California, Davis, found that, when infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the devastating pandemic currently killing people by the hundreds of thousands and making tens of millions sick, rhesus macaque monkeys developed antibodies against the virus in much the same way that humans do.
As reported by Andy Fell in UC Davis News:
The research was published yesterday in an open access paper in Nature CommunicationSigns of an effective immune response
Iyer and colleagues infected eight rhesus macaques at the CNPRC with SARS-CoV-2 virus isolated from the first human patient treated at UC Davis. At the time (early March) the case was the first known example of “community transmission” in the U.S. that could not be traced to someone arriving from another country.
The researchers followed immune responses in the animals over about two weeks. The animals showed either mild disease that was quickly resolved or no symptoms, with a brief and transient immune response, Iyer said.
The animals showed all the signs of producing an effective immune response to a viral infection. They made a type of helper cell called Th1 cells in the blood, lungs and lymph nodes, and produced both IgM-type antibodies and the higher-affinity IgG antibodies associated with long-term immune protection.
Importantly, structures called germinal centers developed in the lymph nodes near the lungs. These contained cells called T follicular helper, or Tfh, cells. Germinal centers and Tfh cells are associated with generating plasma cells, which remain in the body for many years to produce antibodies against pathogens the immune system has seen before. These plasma cells allow the immune system to “remember” and react to infections that occurred years or decades previously.
“These results suggest that vaccines that induce Th1-Tfh responses will support immunity,” Iyer said.
What creationists need to explain is why this is evidence of design by a magic entity doing magic and not the predictable outcome of an evolutionary process. If rhesus macaque monkeys are not close relatives of humans, why do they react the way humans react to viruses that are pathological to us, like the SARS-CoV-2 virus is, and why can the response of their immune system be a good predictor of how a human's immune system would respond to the same pathogen?Abstract
CD4 T follicular helper (Tfh) cells are important for the generation of durable and specific humoral protection against viral infections. The degree to which SARS-CoV-2 infection generates Tfh cells and stimulates the germinal center (GC) response is an important question as we investigate vaccine induced immunity against COVID-19. Here, we report that SARS-CoV-2 infection in rhesus macaques, either infused with convalescent plasma, normal plasma, or receiving no infusion, resulted in transient accumulation of pro-inflammatory monocytes and proliferating Tfh cells with a Th1 profile in peripheral blood. CD4 helper cell responses skewed predominantly toward a Th1 response in blood, lung, and lymph nodes. SARS-CoV-2 Infection induced GC Tfh cells specific for the SARS-CoV-2 spike and nucleocapsid proteins, and a corresponding early appearance of antiviral serum IgG antibodies. Collectively, the data show induction of GC responses in a rhesus model of mild COVID-19.
Shaan Lakshmanappa, Yashavanth; Elizaldi, Sonny R.; Roh, Jamin W.; Schmidt, Brian A.; Carroll, Timothy D.; Weaver, Kourtney D.; Smith, Justin C.; Verma, Anil; Deere, Jesse D.; Dutra, Joseph; Stone, Mars; Franz, Sergej; Sammak, Rebecca Lee; Olstad, Katherine J.; Rachel Reader, J.; Ma, Zhong-Min; Nguyen, Nancy K.; Watanabe, Jennifer; Usachenko, Jodie; Immareddy, Ramya; Yee, JoAnn L.; Weiskopf, Daniela; Sette, Alessandro; Hartigan-O’Connor, Dennis; McSorley, Stephen J.; Morrison, John H.; Tran, Nam K.; Simmons, Graham; Busch, Michael P.; Kozlowski, Pamela A.; Van Rompay, Koen K. A.; Miller, Christopher J.; Iyer, Smita S.
SARS-CoV-2 induces robust germinal center CD4 T follicular helper cell responses in rhesus macaques.
Nat Commun 12, 541 (2021). doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-20642-x
Copyright: © 2021 The authors. Published by Springer Nature Limited
Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)
Perhaps more pertinently, why does the work of biomedical scientist produce tangible benefits to mankind when, so far as we can tell, no new disoveries and no treatments for diseases have ever been made by creation 'scientists' lookign for explanation in books about things people used to believe in the Bronze Age, before we knew any better?
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