A cure for the common cold may be closer than ever

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Scientists may have cracked the code for the common cold.

A cold is difficult to treat — let alone cure. There are hundreds of cold virus strains and they are highly adaptable, allowing them to quickly mutate and become resistant to drugs. Cold medications don’t target the virus and only help to ease symptoms, such as a sore throat, runny nose and cough.

But researchers in the UK have identified the protein in human cells – N-myristoyltransferase (NMT) — that the virus needs to copy itself. So rather than attack the virus, scientists at Imperial College London have developed a way to block the protein that works against all strains. The results were recently published in Nature Chemistry.

“The idea is that we could give it to someone when they first become infected and it would stop the virus being able to replicate and spread,” Ed Tate, an author on the study, told the BBC. “Even if the cold has taken hold, it still might help lessen the symptoms.”

The research team developed a molecule that blocks the NMT and is working on turning it into an inhaler-type treatment that could be taken at the first sign of the sniffles. In lab tests, the molecule worked within minutes of being applied to human lung cells.

“We know it works,” Tate told The Sun. “But we need to carry out trials to prove it is safe.”

Human trials could take up to two years.

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