Everybody hates catching a cold, but we are all resigned to it inevitably happening on a regular basis. If you don’t have a cold at least once a year you can count yourself lucky. The reason we catch colds with such regularity is due to rhinoviruses (HRV), which are the most common viral infectious agents in humans. They are what cause the common cold, although over 200 variants of virus in total are implicated with common colds.
There’s 99 recognized types of the human rhinovirus, and they thrive in a temperature range found in our noses (33-35 degrees Celsius). They are also tiny, ranging in size from 300 nanometers down to just 30nm. Catching one of these viruses is easy because transmission is either from contact with a contaminated surface (wash your hands!) or by inhaling an infected respiratory droplet after an ill person coughs, sneezes, or simply exhales breath (wear a mask when ill!).Scientists have some good news for us, though.
Even though there are so many types of rhinovirus we could soon have a vaccine. Emory University School of Medicine and Children’s Healthcare based in Atlanta have been experimenting with mixing 25 variants of inactivated rhinovirus with their vaccine. When injected into mice their bodies reacted by producing antiviral antibodies that would prevent humans from becoming infected.
So in theory one dose of vaccine will protect against all forms of the common cold. For now, the vaccine remains a manufacturing tech problem to overcome, but one that is in the hands of a startup called Meissa Vaccines, Inc. If they succeed in bringing such a vaccine to market, expect everyone involved to become very rich very quickly as who wouldn’t pay to guarantee they never caught a cold again?
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