Cellular Immunity Puns

https://twitter.com/swapneilparikh/status/1468828695217336321

Humoral immunity (antibodies) is like the friend who jumps someone before they land a punch on you. Sometimes it gets its ass beat too.

Cellular immunity (T-cells) is like the friend who lets you get beat up a little before stepping to kick the other dude’s ass. It rarely gets its ass beat (HIV says hi).

Additionally, current approved LNP-mRNA vaccines have been shown to potentially have dose-dependent side effects4. The STI-mRNA and MuVaxx combination appear to elicit a similar humoral response and an elevated cellular response against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, at a fraction of the current vaccine doses. These initial preclinical results provide the basis for Sorrento to move forward aggressively with IND-enabling studies with our MultiValent STI-mRNA vaccine candidate.

I've seen general answers to the question but I'm looking for a specific one. What are the cells produced after vaccination (macrophages, neutrophils, b-cells, t-cells, memory b and t cells, etc) and when are they produced? How do these cells degrade over time, and how do we retain the immunity?

I was curious about this question because we need two weeks post vaccination to develop full immunity. Why is there such a long lag time? Which of these immune cells needs the longer time in order to be produced?

It seems to me that most discussion revolving around COVID and immunity has been fixated on the humoral antibody response and the fact that Ig appears to diminish after about 90 days.

However, I was watching last week's UCSF Grand Rounds and Dr. Monica Ghandi (beginning at minute 43) discusses the cellular immunity response and it took me right back to my immunology class in M1.

As I recall, intracellular infections (viral, mycobacteria, listeria, etc..) are primarily a T Killer cell driven response. Some of Dr. Ghandi's sources show that even asymptomatic infection may lead to T cell immunity. She also appears skeptical that any cases of re-infection have been thus far documented, even though infections have been ongoing for ~8 months so far, suggesting that infected individuals do retain immunity.

I'm not sure there are any practical implications from this, but if anything, it makes me hopeful. Perhaps after these epidemic waves bottomed up, there is still a reasonable chance of long-lasting immunity?? I'm curious to hear the thoughts on this forum..

Edit: Thanks for the responses everyone. I suppose my main points are 1) when thinking about the pathophysiology of viral infection, I am more hopeful that long term immunity will be conferred and this may not become an annual problem. And 2) should we consider investing more money/labor into T-cell mediated testing/therapy? However, as has been mentioned below, that appears to be an extraordinarily complex and expensive topic.

Clearly, a very complicated subject, and a lot of unknowns, but I appreciate the insights!