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Breakthrough Portends Cure For the Common Cold
breadboy21 writes with this excerpt from the Independent:
"Scientists have been able to show for the first time that the body's immune defenses can destroy the common cold virus after it has actually invaded the inner sanctum of a human cell, a feat that was believed until now to be impossible. The discovery opens the door to the development of a new class of antiviral drugs that work by enhancing this natural virus-killing machinery of the cell. Scientists believe the first clinical trials of new drugs based on the findings could begin within two to five years."
But studies at the Medical Research Council's laboratory have found that the antibodies produced by the immune system, which recognise and attack invading viruses, actually ride piggyback into the inside of a cell with the invading virus.
Yes but these 'Slim Pickens' antibodies are often regarded as clinically insane by the others that watch in confusion as the suicidal antibody hoots and hollers, waiving its antibody cowboy hat around as the virus blasts them both into the cell.
My work here is dung.
Nature will find a way to give us another sneeze.
My cold will be over by then.
Includes sudden death. If you or a loved one has died after taking this drug. WE CAN GET YOU MONEY!
I look forward to seeing how this annoyance will evolve into a serious threat
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
We reduce the number of ways we can defend against Martian war machines.
I am officially gone from
http://xkcd.com/678/
while reading the article i couldn't help thinking that the immune system would make a cool Flash game.
Unless you have a depressed immune system, I for one would NOT want this. I think part of the problem we have today with "people getting sick" is that at the first sniffle, we are off to the doctor, "demanding" an antibiotic or something to make us feel better. Doctors are partly to blame because they use to just give in and give it to us, even though most of the time, it wasn't a bacteria problem, but a virus problem. Now, a lot of antibiotics don't work, because the little bugs have gotten use to the stuff and don't work at all. Along with that, we don't eat enough raw food...everything these days is preprocessed. We don't eat raw cooked veggies, everything comes out of a can. We don't eat home-made bread, it comes from the store. We don't get enough "natural" products to protect us against invaders. And, as much of a pain in the butt as it is, we don't let ourselves "be sick". Sometimes letting the body fight off a cold, or small virus is better than trying to beat it. It helps our immune system "buck up" and keep us healthy the next time a little invader hits us. The other thing that just gets me ticked is people NOT WASHING THEIR HANDS when they use the restroom. I see it daily...people walk in, do their business, and walk out. H*ll, didn't your momma tell you to wash up after you do your business? Nice to see that some research has found those alcohol based hand cleaners are kind of worthless. Just use a little soap and warm water. Soapbox (no pun) mode off.... I'm an outside contractor who works around a large hospital...I see a LOT of garbage that people do daily...and scary...sometimes from the medical staff!
No, no, no, no, no. This is just silly.
I have seen several Star Trek episodes where they emphatically pointed out that they had never found a cure for the common cold. So how could there be one in the mere 21st century? Idiots.
Transporters that can reverse the aging process? Sure. (Though somehow they repeatedly forget this and continue to die of old age.) A cure for most every disease except the common cold? Sure! But a cure for the common cold itself? Impossible!
Everyone else is clamoring for preventative medicine saying health care costs will go down, but you say let them get sick. Interesting
How about 28 days later? Oh please... someone find a way to mod this as "lame."
Two to five years?! But I'm sick now!
Somebody call Will Smith. This sounds like a good post-apocalyptic future type of movie... you know maybe with some drug whose side effect is to turn people into flesh eating zombies. And Will Smith could be an unlikely hero who captures one of the zombies and finds a cure just in time. That sounds just up his alley. Wait! What?! He's already done one of those? Oh, never mind.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/opinion/05ackerman.html
i just read this last month
the common cold is an immune system overreaction. the virus does not cause the cold, our own bodies overreact to the cold, and that causes ALL symptoms. which explains why cold medicines work: they modulate the immune response, they don't actually fight the virus
so the virus comes in, borrows some cellular machinery for a few days, makes a few copies, and then leaves. our body's response is to call out the entirety of the navy, the marines, the army, the air force, the cavalry, mortar batteries, drone predators, and tactical nuclear strikes. for a crime which amounts to a homeless guy squatting in an unused home for a day or two
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...So now we'll be able to cure the common cold, but can't put a man on the Moon (anymore)?
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
This is proven to help prevent colds. I'll skip the experimental drugs with unknown side-effects.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Medical researchers should be required to keep their yap shut until they produce something that works in humans. For decades I've read thousands (probably tens of thousands) of science articles that promised medical cures. Yet in that time only a handful were produced. Medical science today is little more than a money machine for researchers. I doubt that the investment is worthwhile.
Where's a cure for cancer, for diabetes, for heart disease? Nowhere to be found in the USA.
Will this help in the effectiveness of antivirals for things like herpes, hepatitis and aids?
I think you'll find the majority of cold viruses are caught by airborne droplets from sneezing and coughing, so I don't think washing your hands will help that much. It will work well with infections that are caught by the faeco-oral route, e.g. many vomiting and diarrhoea bugs.
Virus rollls self for initiative.
I can't wait for super-colds to arrive, thanks to this breakthrough. The common cold is innocuous enough, so why force it to evolve?
Until this has been shown to work in-vivo, I wouldn't get your hopes up.
Umbrella Corporation.
keeping the air humid works better for preventing an airborne cold.. the virus sticks to your snot, you the blow it away or swallow it and let the stomach acid take care of business.. its why we are so susceptible in winter, when the air is dry, our primary defence (mucus) us akk dried up and sticky, which gives the virus a place to take hold..
This is just marketing to upgrade my free common cold to uncommon colds. Then fees for gold level colds and platinum level colds.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Perhaps there is some research going on there but a description of it was not found in the article. The article makes no sense. It calls antibodies "war machines". Antibodies just bind proteins. They don't even destroy proteins though often they bind them in ways that inhibits their action until they can be degraded by other proteins. If an anti-body is binding to the coat protein of a virus then it is possible that it can inhibit the viral penetration of the cell. But once the virus dumps it's payload into then the coat protein gets shed. Even if the antibody were still clinging to the coat, the payload is already inside. An antibody that made it inside the cell would have nothing to do! TO be able to do something the antibody would need to be able to bind a DNA or RNA from the virus payload. But antibodies are specialists: an antibody that bound to the coat protein would be very unlikely to also bind DNA or RNA, though it's not beyond possibility. The antibody, assuming the cell did not simply destroy it, could possibly bind to a coat protein produced in the cell by the action of the virus but there are going to be many of those proteins produced so binding to one would do nothing much.
this is indeed marketing. I wonder what the actual science was.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Can anyone find the original journal article? From a fairly quick PubMed search, James' group last published on TRIM21 back in 2008. There have been a few papers on TRIM21 in 2010, but they're not from James' institution and they don't share any authors with James' 2008 paper.
Or is this being reported before the paper has been published? Do we know that it has even been properly reviewed?
This is really cool if it's true and it's relevant to my research, so I'd love to see the original paper.
Vitamin D is needed by the immune system: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7379094/Vitamin-D-triggers-and-arms-the-immune-system.html
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--NqqB2nhBE
And whole foods (especially vegetables, fruits, and legumes) help you have a disease resistant body:
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diet-myths-the-food-pyramid-of-the-insane.html
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPiR9VcuVWw
http://www.healthpromoting.com/Articles/articles/PleasureTrap.htm
Though a good mental attitude, exercise, infrastructure, good sleep, thankfulness, meditating on the great mystery, etc. can help with general wellness, too.
http://books.google.com/books?id=bCuC2H-6k_8C
http://books.google.com/books?id=RKZreNYKNHQC
http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about
http://www.marcinequenzer.com/creation.htm#The%20Field%20of%20Plenty
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/important-sleep-habits
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
as far as I'm aware, rhinoviruses shed their coats on entry, so I don't think that this will work for the common cold. Maybe on flu or something. And they don't go so far as suggesting how this pathway will be up-regulated...no drugs developed..perhaps transgenic people? Perhaps we all take interferon all the time? I think they're overstating it a little...
In other words, is the main problem legal/political rather than technical ?
Yes, but it's not the sort of problem you think. The politics of the situation is that bicarbonate can't be patented, so the drug companies have to hunt for something that can be.
The best thing a person can do to prevent the common cold is to keep their body's acid/alkaline levels in balance. This is best done through diet (plenty of vegetables and fruits) and exercise (which burns off acids). If you don't want to eat right or exercise, you can consume bicarbonate directly, on an empty stomach.
A box of baking soda is $0.46 at Wal-Mart, but that's likely to throw a body's sodium/potassium levels out of balance because most people get lots of sodium and not enough potassium in their diets. Potassium Bicarbonate is a good option if you don't want to eat lots of vegetables or exercise.
This is basic biochemistry - there's no need to wait a decade for some wonder-drug.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
"...the first clinical trials of new drugs based on the findings could begin within two to five years." Am I the only one that wouldn't mind a moratorium on this sort of reporting. Let us know when the clinical trials are starting, or perhaps when it's hitting the market. Otherwise it's a bunch of false hope with little in the way of practical application in any meaningful timeframe.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Common cold cured in 2-5 years... Zombie apocalypse to follow a few weeks later....
"...In any immunology textbook you will read that once a virus makes it into a cell, that is game over because the cell is now infected. At that point there is nothing the immune response can do other than kill that cell,..."
What a load of crap. Cells have a plenty of methods to fight virus infections. For example viral RNA silencing or interferon alpha/beta response. Moreover, killing of the infected cells is also a viable immune strategy.
So it is not a game over... In addition, where is the link to the original publication? (article or it didn't happen!)
The "Print" button above the article links to a creepy EULA-like page where you are generously allowed to print out up to five copies with ads, for free! Apparently The Independent invented something called iCopyright, which in contrast to copyright limits the number of printouts I can make of a webpage. Oh wait, it doesn't - luckily the print button in my browser still works, and so does my adblocker. Sue me in iCourt, Independent.
I'm not entirely in agreement with GP, but the portion you responded to does make sense.
In order to keep health care costs down, the best things to prevent are those that are going to drive up costs and/or cause the most deaths, and the best way to prevent it is the cheapest.
The common cold already has an easy and cheap preventative solution - you can easily be prevented from spreading - if the cold is making the rounds in your area, start washing your hands more often (with plain old soap if you can find a way to avoid the antibacterial stuff since it's not helping). If you feel sick, fercrissake stay the hell home, and if you can't then make an effort not to touch anything belonging to someone else, or something someone else will be touching soon, and warn people that you don't feel well so they can be extra cautious.
Once you have a cold, you'll probably be out of work for a day, no matter what you do. Maybe two if it's particularly nasty. You can go to your doctor and get a scrip for something that will make your body fight the cold off more effectively, but it will only cost money and not really cut down on the time it takes to beat the cold by all that much. It's also not going to prevent you from giving your cold to someone else, even if it does manage to mask your symptoms for the day.
I see this breakthrough as a wonderful one for, say, AIDS patients. The virus compromises their immune system, so we feed them a crapload of calories to support the drain their immune system is about to put on their system, and give them "Immune System Booster" which may be enough to knock out the virus.
For colds? No, the best way to handle the common cold is to try and prevent it yourself using the freely-available method of washing your hands and being cautious around seasonal changes, which change people's patterns and introduce them to new viruses.
The best way to handle it if you get one is to allow yourself to get sick, take care of yourself to prevent further infections like pneumonia, and try to keep from spreading it to others as much as you possibly can manage (particularly those with compromised immune systems). Nothing you can get from your doctor is really going to make it any better, or make it pass faster, or keep you from spreading it, and you're really just wasting health care dollars.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
I think people are arguing from two different set of assumptions. Either:
i) The virus can mutate to avoid this mechanism but it has not done so. For example the mechanism may be ineffecient or at the level expressed by the host is not detrimental as to prevent successful replicative lifecycle. Perhaps mutation will lower the viruses 'fitness' in other domains.
ii) The virus cannot mutate to avoid this mechanism (unlikely, but possible if it's in a key regulatory pathway or adaptor molecule for cell entry). If this is the case the question is then why has the host not increased expression of these mechanisms.
I think the OP assumed the latter - as in, it's a natural mechanism and so the virus has no defense - but this is not necessarily true. It could simply be that *until now* it has not been in the viruses interest to invest this energy and potential loss of viability (in other ways) to avoid this mechanism. Once we add a further selection pressure via this mechanism it could suddenly become very advantageous to do so. It is worth noting that RNA viruses are ridiculously variable even within a single host and can just as easily select off any adaptation once we stop treatment.
In either case, it's a useful and interesting discovery but it's too early to champion or dismiss it as a treatment just yet.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
The protein is TRIM21, hitherto known only to readers of Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM21
If it can bring an antibody into the cell that's very interesting, even if they've only demonstrated it in cell culture. Let me know when they try it on a mouse.
Contrary to the article, I always thought that there are other mechanisms that can kill viruses inside the cell, particularly siRNAs could also kill viruses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_interfering_RNA
Suppose some chinese clinic TODAY starts using these pre-trial findings to implement a new cough medicine, and floods the world with cheap prices for what might be poisonus snake oil...
Unlike IT's draft-n business, I am rather willing to hold this extremely long 2-5 year TRIAL + marketting and initial delivery times, but am sure some early implementation will claim to be as good as the finished n product. Matter of fact, if any "draft-n" medicine doesn't kill people, it will be hard to kill even after the trials succeed. Exhibit a: retail stores still have draft-n routers that aren't even bottom-tier prices, a whole year after the real standard was loosed. And we're still waiting for our firmware updates to our draft-N crap. Oh, well.
Just like Dr Pepper Except with gusto
Yes on 19
terrorism of the largest variety right now in the world is religious in nature. not geopolitical. not socioeconomic. not tribal or racial. but theological
those who engage in terrorism are black, white, and every color. those who are victims of terrorism are black, white, and every color. the reasons given for fighting terrorism do not mention race. the reasons terrorists give for their grievances do not mention race
listen to me: you do not help any problem in this world if you don't even understand the problem
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Interesting to note that the "war machines" comment was not from a journalist but Sir Greg Winter, Deputy Director at the laboratory undertaking the research :-)
Link to original article
http://www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/news-and-events/lmb-news/lmb-scientists-redefine-how-our-immune-system-responds-to-viruses
Link to academic publication
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/11/01/1014074107.full.pdf+html
---- mike simaska
I like to point out as a retort to that "We went to the moon why can't we cure the common cold." is that there's 3 basic reasons it isn't worth it. Look if you're willing to suffer with it the cold goes away in 7 days and you don't get that sick. (Now the flu you can get really sick.) So if you were selling me a cure it'd have to have 3 properties which kind of make it a toughie. The cure would have to be fast since if I take nothing I'm better in 7 days. It'd have to be cheap since if I do nothing I'm better for free. It'd also have to be super safe since if I do nothing I get better with little chance of getting really sick. So unless you have a cure that has those 3 properties a cure isn't worth it.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
...but I'd take this with a grain of salt. I grew up hearing about this stuff 20 years ago - my father worked with Mark von Itzstein in the development of Zanamivir in the 80s. I heard the statement "Cure For the Common Cold" so many times since then that I'm dubious now. Note that the wiki article above notes "According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), no flu, seasonal or pandemic, has shown any signs of resistance to zanamivir.[1]" so presumably, it's already the case that we have a "Cure For the Common Cold". Hell, as a young teenager I was proud that my father was involved in that exercise. Until, of course, I saw my father interviewed with tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE and Etta Cetera where he noted "of course, now that the cold is cured, it can no longer be used as an excuse for that age-old Australian work shirker, the sickie". That was when the full reality of my father's complicity in teh capitalist sytem struck (and horrified) me.
Could well be that the viral infections causing the common cold are really just a good excuse to rev up our immune systems. Take that away and we could be ill-prepared to cope with occasional contact with real nasty viruses.
Maybe sleep is a similar phenomenon - it's a mild inconvience, you /can/ medicate around it, but it's really not a good idea.
Well, not really, but it is remarkably free of mention of the problems which lie ahead. There are risks of inducing a pathological autoimmune response of course. I think there is a bit of naivety on the researchers part to assume that there will not be viruses out there which bypass their technique by injecting RNA (mRNA, siRNA, etc. etc.) directly into the cell where it is then taken into the nucleus free of antibodies. Are there antibodies which recognize ssRNA? With these drugs widely used it will favor the proliferation of nasty retroviruses. We'll have to be careful and so I think it will take quite a bit longer than two to five years to see these drugs in the market (at least here in the USA).