“Pandemic then and now: Protective antibodies in 1918-20 and 2020-21”
William Hoffman - hoffm003@umn.edu
Laboratory Medicine and Pathology
University of Minnesota Medical School
Zoom talk for “TC Talks” series, Minnesota JCC, March 15, 2021
Accompanied during the Q&A by Claudia Cohn, MD, PhD
Technical support by Michael Lougee, PhD
Antibodies at work
Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD describes our adaptive immune system
B cells produce protective, neutralizing antibodies
Novel coronavirus – ACE2 receptor binding and the world economy
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis: “Living in a COVID-19 World”
THERAPY: Sir Henry Wellcome and Burroughs Wellcome & Co.
Diphtheria antitoxin therapy
PANDEMIC: The great 1918-20 influenza pandemic and convalescent plasma
Minnesota outbreak 1918
MEMORY: TV’s “Medical Investigation” (2004): Genesis of an idea
Marcel Proust: Remembrance of Things Past / In Search of Lost Time
PREVENTION: The influenza pandemic vaccine conundrum
Revolutionary mRNA vaccines spur protective antibodies against
novel coronavirus
Ecology and health: Ecosystems have everything to do with pandemics
Chief Seattle: “We did not weave the web of life. We are merely a
strand of it.”
