Yorkshire team in common cold breakthrough

SCIENTISTS IN Yorkshire believe they have come a step closer to unlocking the “enigma code” that causes the common cold.

Researchers at the Universities of York and Leeds yesterday published the workings of a biological code previously hidden within the gene family that includes the cold, polio, and hand foot and mouth disease.

They say the code works like the cogs in a Swiss watch, and could be the key to developing within a decade new drug treatments that would be the medical equivalent of “pouring sand into the works”.

The Yorkshire research, in partnership with the University of Helsinki, builds on the same team’s 2015 discovery which identified a set of encrypted signals in a plant virus similar to the structure of Human Parechovirus, which can cause sepsis-like illness and meningitis in children.

Professor Peter Stockley, from Leeds University, said: “The coding works like the cogwheels in a Swiss watch. We now need a drug that has the same effect as pouring sand into the watch; every part of the viral mechanism could be disabled.

“We need to move away from a vaccine approach, which is what we have for flu and polio. Vaccines, although our best source of defence against polio at the moment, can result in the release of more virulent strains of the disease.”

Professor Reidun Twarock, at the University of York, said: “The common cold infects more than two billion people annually, making it one of the most successful viral pathogens, so we are excited to make this crucial step forward.”