Common cold virus mapped

[Chris]

(CNN) -- Researchers have solved the first step in treating the common cold, by mapping its entire genome, or genetic map, teams from the University of Maryland and the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported Thursday.


The common cold, also known as the human rhinovirus infection

"We have the pieces all in place. They can't go in any other way. Now we have to understand what the pictures are telling us," said Dr. Stephen B. Liggett, professor of medicine and physiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and director of its Cardiopulmonary Genomics Program.

The research was published in the online edition of the journal Science on Thursday afternoon.

Genetic map of cold virus a step toward cure, scientists say - CNN.com

 

[garyd]

Last I heard there were about six differnt forms of Rhino virus linked with the common cold...

 

[Chris]

Last I heard there were about six differnt forms of Rhino virus linked with the common cold...

It might be helpful to read the article at the link.

 

[editec]

Mankind and the Rhino type viruses have been fellow travelors since mankind first emerged.

Mankind has reached a sort of ecological balance with them since they don't kill us and we cannot entirely kill them, either.

Assume that we could eliminate that family of viruses entirely.

Should we?

I ask because nature abhors a vacum.

Who knows what new bug might insinuate itself into the ecological niche that Rhino viruses are currently residing in?

Even though I am alive today thanks to antibiotics, I am no longer entirely convinced that, in the long run, antibiotics are necessarily good thing for the HUMAN genome.

 

[Wolf]

Mankind and the Rhino type viruses have been fellow travelors since mankind first emerged.

Mankind has reached a sort of ecological balance with them since they don't kill us and we cannot entirely kill them, either.

Assume that we could eliminate that family of viruses entirely.

Should we?

I ask because nature abhors a vacum.

Who knows what new bug might insinuate itself into the ecological niche that Rhino viruses are currently residing in?

Even though I am alive today thanks to antibiotics, I am no longer entirely convinced that, in the long run, antibiotics are necessarily good thing for the HUMAN genome.

Most anti-biotics are becoming useless because they are overprescribed and used when not nescessary.

If the drug companies allow science to eliminate the common cold something will come along.. its out there mutating right now.. .. perhaps the bird flu... etc..

 

[52ndStreet]

There will be a Super Flu Virus in a few Years , that will kill hundreds of Millions of People.
No anti biotics will be able to control or kill this Virus.

 

[garyd]

None that currently exist at any rate. And antibiotics don't general work on viral infections anyway. Viruses are really weird little critters anyway, and really really tiny into the bargain As small as your average bacteria is it is a giant compared to even the larger viruses.

 

[Chris]

Viruses can't live in an alkaline enviroment.

If you keep your body alkaline, you won't get colds.

That's the idea behind Alka Selzer.