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  • The Atlantic

    Show Your Immune System Some Love

    Antibodies are great and all, but macrophages, B cells, and helper T cells deserve some attention too.
    by Katherine J. Wu Apr 22, 2021 6 minutes
    Source: Getty / Adam Maida / The Atlantic

    If the immune system ran its own version of The Bachelor, antibodies would, hands down, get this season’s final rose.

    These Y-shaped molecules have acquired some star-caliber celebrity in the past year, due in no small part to COVID-19. For months, their potentially protective powers have made headlines around the globe; we test for them with abandon, and anxiously await the results. Many people have come to equate antibodies, perhaps not entirely accurately, with near imperviousness to the coronavirus and its effects. Antibodies are, in many ways, the heartthrobs of the immune system—and some 15 months deep into immunological infatuation, the world is still swooning hard.

    Frankly, it’s all getting to be a little too much.

    Don’t get me wrong: Antibodies have served me well, and thanks to my recent dalliance with the Pfizer vaccine, the anti-coronavirus variety will be receiving an extra dose of my admiration for a good while yet. I am, above all else, eager for the rest of the global population to nab

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