VANQUISHING THE VIRUS

The spiky sphere of Sars-CoV-2 is now a familiar image. The spike proteins give the coronavirus its distinctive crown, and their tip is what the virus uses to attach itself to cells in somebody’s lungs or blood vessels. It latches onto specific receptors on the outside of human cells, much like a key to a lock. Once ingested by the cell, it inserts its own RNA-based genetic code and tricks the cell’s protein-making machinery into creating hundreds of viral clones.

The primary job of our immune system is to detect such hostile foreign agents and to fight them off, deploying armies of different immune cells: B cells to produce antibodies to coat the spikes and neutralise the virus, and T cells to remember the infection and to