Huge Virus Breakthrough Could Mean a Cure For the Common Cold

Researchers at a Cambridge lab have found that our bodies can fight viruses not only outside cells but inside them, too, a discovery that will rewrite textbooks and one that could save millions of lives and vanquish the common cold.

Viruses are responsible for roughly twice as many deaths as cancer, hiding away inside cells where up until now they've had refuge from antiviral drugs. Our fundamental understanding of cellular biology was that once a virus had infected a cell, the body had no way to fight it except to kill that cell off.

But a team of researchers at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge have found that we can actually send antibodies into cells on the backs of those viruses. Once inside, a naturally occuring protein, TRIM21, recognizes that the virus attached to the antibody is foreign and begins eliminating it, a process that can be as speedy as two hours. Leo James, the leader of the Cambridge team, explained to the Independent:



The researchers had been working with human cells cultured in a lab, and animal testing on the findings will begin soon. Researchers hope that testing for new drugs based on the findings could arrive as quickly as two years. And as someone who's suffering from a particularly miserable cold at the moment, they can't come soon enough. [BBC; video images and captions via Independent]