#115–David Watkins, PhD: Immunology, monoclonal antibodies, & vaccine strategies for COVID-19

Original release date: 6/15/20

In this episode, David Watkins, professor of pathology at George Washington University, shares how insights from his HIV and Zika virus research could apply to SARS-CoV-2 protection strategies. David introduces monoclonal antibodies as an intervention to prevent and treat COVID-19 infection, and also discusses how they could be used as a hedge to vaccine development. Additionally, David’s immunology tutorial explains the innate and adaptive immune systems and their differentiated responses to viral infection.

We discuss:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:04:30 - Background and current interest in immunology
00:10:15 - Immunology 101—The innate and adaptive immune system
00:19:00 - Defining antibodies, importance of neutralizing antibodies, and serology testing for COVID-19
00:25:00 - B cells—How they fight viruses, create antibodies, and fit into the vaccine strategy
00:36:15 - T cells—Role in the adaptive immune system and ability to kill infected cells to prevent viral spread
00:51:00 - Valuable lessons from HIV applied to SARS-CoV-2
01:01:30 - Lessons to be taken from the hepatitis C success story
01:04:45 - Monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, and the most promising strategy for preventing and treating COVID-19 infection
01:19:00 - COVID-19 vaccines in development
01:25:20 - How David’s work with Zika virus informs his thinking on SARS-CoV-2
01:27:45 - Why a vaccine for COVID-19 doesn’t need to be perfect to be effective

About:
The Peter Attia Drive is a weekly, ultra-deep-dive podcast focusing on maximizing health, longevity, critical thinking…and a few other things. With over 30 million episodes downloaded, it features topics including fasting, ketosis, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, mental health, and much more.

Peter is a physician focusing on the applied science of longevity. His practice deals extensively with nutritional interventions, exercise physiology, sleep physiology, emotional and mental health, and pharmacology to increase lifespan (delay the onset of chronic disease), while simultaneously improving healthspan (quality of life).

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[SkpperCS]

Crazy this only has 3k views. This is a nice dive on immune system physiology. Very fascinating stuff.

[EvinFox]

Wow, it's complicated! I am going to follow his work.

[ihvepurpose]

22:58 in to the talk. If the 20% did not make neutralizing antibodies how did they recover?

[jasonvoss]

Apologies in advance because my background is engineering not medicine. But might it be possible to draw blood, keep it healthy outside the body, infect it with the virus outside the body, let the blood go through an immune reaction and develop neutralising antibodies, extract them, then return just them into the body? The idea was to try to arrive at the desired outcome of immunity but bypass the dangerous part of having a huge viral load inside the body. Even if it's not feasible maybe the idea triggers a better idea in someone smarter than me. :)