Sequencing virus genome to cure the common cold
Finds could lead to new drugs and vaccines
Researchers have sequenced the genomes of all 99 known strains of human rhinovirus — a virus that causes the common cold. The work provides new information about how the strains are related and how to predict their virulence, according to a report online February 12 in Science. Decoding the genomes of rhinovirus strains is the first step toward developing vaccines against the common cold, or toward developing drugs that kill the viruses.
“Most people think of colds as just a nuisance, but colds can be debilitating for very young people, old people or people with asthma,” says study coauthor Stephen B. Liggett, a pulmonologist and molecular geneticist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Previous efforts to cure the common cold were hampered by the sheer number rhinovirus strains, and until now only about a third of the strains had been sequenced. “Now we have the full picture,” says Ann Palmenberg, a molecular virologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and coauthor of the study.