SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Drug target for curing the common cold
UK scientists believe they may have found a way to combat the common cold.
Rather than attacking the virus itself, which comes in hundreds of versions, the treatment targets the human host. It blocks a key protein in the body's cells that cold viruses normally hijack to self-replicate and spread. This should stop any cold virus in its tracks if given early enough, lab studies suggest [DOI: 10.1038/s41557-018-0039-2] [DX]. Safety trials in people could start within two years.
The Imperial College London researchers are working on making a form of the drug that can be inhaled, to reduce the chance of side-effects. In the lab, it worked within minutes of being applied to human lung cells, targeting a human protein called NMT, Nature Chemistry journal reports.
Related: Vaccine Against the Common Cold may be Achievable
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday May 16 2018, @06:21PM (1 child)
AC didn't mandate that blocking the protein would kill you.
Look, if you block his protein, you'll never have a cold, but most likely a heart attack in the next 20 years.
If you're young enough to care about a heart attack, use this new remedy which will prevent it, but guarantees a stroke within 30 years.
Don't want a stroke? There's this experimental prion-derived drug that will solve that problem, but Creutsfeldt-Jacob is pretty certain by the 40th anniversary.
And if you're too young to want that, I'm sure you don't want the new pill will will cure all of this but leave you impotent starting tomorrow.
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday May 16 2018, @09:25PM
I went with the Propecia. Still having INCREDIBLE sex! I’m so sexy you wouldn’t believe it.