Early in the pandemic, people infected with the original strain of the coronavirus that caused COVID-19 generated a consistent antibody response, forming two primary groups binding to the spike protein on the its outer surface. A new study, however, has demonstrated that these antibodies don't work  well against the newer versions of COVID.

As a result of the discovery, which was reported in the journal Nature Communications, new strains of the virus may be able to infect people who have already been infected by the earlier version of COVID, as well as vaccines that were designed to combat the initial strain, as well as the development of vaccine boosters.

Nicholas Wu, Professor of biochemistry at the varsity said, "Antibody response is quite relevant to everything from understanding natural infection and how we recover from infection to vaccine design. The body has the capability to produce diverse antibody responses -- it's estimated we could make a trillion different antibodies. So when you see people are making quite similar antibodies to a particular virus, we call it a convergent antibody response".

Researchers combed through previously published studies on COVID-19 patients to find information on the antibody sequences they produced. Antibodies against the spike protein, the component of the virus that binds to receptors on human cells and infects them, were the focus of the study. The majority of vaccinations are designed to neutralise the spike protein.

The ability of convergent antibodies to bind to various variations was examined by the researchers and it was discovered that some were no longer bound.

The researchers said they'd like to do more research on the antibody responses to delta and other variants to determine if there's a convergent response and how it differs from the original strain.