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I have done my PhD on T cell activation. The persistent focus of the media and even some of the science community on Antibody induced immunity was completely beyond me. T cells were largely simply ignored even though they play such a crucial role in the body’s immune response.

Antibodies seem to be a concept much easier to grasp. Maybe we should call T cells "Police Cells or "Anti-Cells" instead. You know, some marketing might help...



T cell activation is readily misunderstood even among some cell biologists. There's a lot of people in life science academia who desperately need to update their knowledge about the recent discoveries in Immunology.


Are vaccines necessary for someone who has had covid? If it was absolutely necessary to prioritise those who don’t have any immunity at all, is there a test that can help identify with that?


The FDA recently approved the first test of T-cells to determine whether someone was previously infected by Covid, https://abcnews.go.com/Health/fda-authorizes-cell-test-game-...

>The test is administered via blood draw. T-cell DNA is then extracted and sequenced with Microsoft's artificial intelligence, mapping out the immune system's "massive black box" data into navigable science, researchers say.


> Maybe we should call T cells "Police Cells or "Anti-Cells" instead. You know, some marketing might help...

Sad, but probably very true...


Good idea! Infographic, logo, spokesperson.



Thanks!


And a cute branded website, treat it like one of those named exploits perhaps?


Yep, it is competing for research resources and media attention.

This opinion piece used the phrase "T Cells: Warriors of SARS-CoV-2 Infection", https://www.cell.com/trends/immunology/fulltext/S1471-4906(2...

UK Science Museum 2-pager with diagrams (https://www.immunology.org/public-information/bitesized-immu...) and UCB lecture slides (http://mcb.berkeley.edu/courses/mcb150/Lecture15/Lecture15(6...)

Maybe vendors (e.g. https://www.rndsystems.com/research-area/t-cell-kits) would support a T-cell microsite, with dedicated sections for science journalists, academics and industry scientists. A vendor created this poster on T-cell subsets: https://docs.abcam.com/pdf/immunology/t_cells_the_usual_subs...

This 2018 effort looks useful, https://github.com/hammerlab/t-cell-guide

> We provide practical hints and tips on basic cellular and molecular techniques for handling primary human T cells. We hope that this guide will serve as a reference point to evaluate, discuss, and improve current practices in T cell culturing and manipulation.

Oh wow, there are T cell cartoons :)

https://cellcartoons.net/character/cd8tcell & https://cellcartoons.net/character/cd4tcell

And a manga/anime called Cells at Work! (https://mangarock.to/manga/1684/cells-at-work/first-chapter#...) whose final (June 2021) installment covers Covid-19. There's also a character called Killer T Cell, https://cellsatwork.fandom.com/wiki/Killer_T_Cell_(Squad_Lea...

> Killer T Cell is loud, obnoxious, and quick-tempered, resulting in rivalries with many cells. He also despises it when a non-white blood cell forms a friendship or relationship with one of his kind. As an immature thymocyte he went through training at Thymus school, where apprentice cells like himself learn to become Mature Thymocytes.

Season 1 is streaming: https://www.netflix.com/title/81028791

Possible seeds for a github-pages microsite..


I like the sound of “anticell” which also suggests a function complementary to “antibody”.


It's sounds like a capeshit villain




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