By Suzanne Sparrow Watson
…but we can’t find a cure for the common cold? How long have we been saying that? Probably since July 20,1969, when the Lunar Module Eagle first touched down on the Sea of Tranquility. After that monumental achievement every other goal seemed like it should be easily solved. Thus, the phrase, “we can put a man on the moon, but we can’t (fill in the blank)” began to be used for every frustrating problem we seemed incapable of conquering. You don’t hear that phrase so much anymore, most likely because we’ve conquered many of those problems. Or maybe we feel confident, or scared, that AI will soon do it for us. But this past week I harkened back to the “common cold” lament because, like so many others, I was brought down by the latest virus going around.
I haven’t felt like doing much and felt sick as a dog. Ironically, I was also dealing with a sick dog, which required me to dress up in something akin to a hazmat suit and take him to the vet. All the while, I wondered that with all the medical miracles that seem to happen on a daily basis, I’m laid low by the same malady that has plagued humankind for hundreds of years. I think there must be a lot of people down with the cold virus right now because last week The Washington Post published an article pondering the same question. Turns out, I guess not surprisingly, that finding a cure is just not that simple. There are more than 200 different viruses that can lead to cold symptoms, with rhinoviruses being the most common. That diversity makes it hard to develop a single vaccine or treatment that would effectively cover all strains.
According to the Post, last week the Yale School of Medicine published the results of a study in the journal Cell Press Blue (you subscribe, right?) about their research into the common cold. They cultivated miniature models of nasal airways to try to understand how upper respiratory viruses unfold, why they can be so variable, and how to make them less miserable. I’m all for that! The details of the study are a little gross, so I’ll forego that in case you’re eating breakfast. The upshot is that after examining thousands of individual cells, the researchers found that it’s not the virus, but the intricacies of the response in thousands of nasal airway cells, that determines whether a cold is quickly quelled or explodes into something more serious. The study showed that the quick production of a protein called interferon by the infected cells kept the rhinovirus in check, allowing it to infect fewer than 2 percent of the cells. When they suppressed interferon, about a third of cells became infected and the rhinovirus proliferated. A different immune sensor kicked in, and molecules related to inflammation increased, mucus production went into overdrive, and the nasal cilia slowed their pulsing. There’s a lot more technical stuff, but that’s the basic gist.
They concluded that there’s a reason that the cold is such a challenge to solve: disentangling immune responses to know which ones are beneficial, which ones help control an infection, and which ones contribute to severity of symptoms, is not straightforward. The lead researcher commented that if the common cold was an easy problem to solve, it would have been solved a long time ago. No kidding. Generations of people have been waiting. Maybe AI will finally be the key to the finding an answer. Clearly, it’s beyond the ken of we mere mortals. As skeptical as I am of AI, I will gladly hail its presence if it can keep me out of the Cold and Cough aisle at Walgreens. In the meantime, I’m going to fix more tea and get drunk on Nyquil.
