A cure for the common cold may eventually be within reach, now that scientists have sequenced the genetic code of 99 strains of the common cold virus. The research team, whose findings are published in Science, found that the strains are organized in about 15 family groups, each with its own ancestral path, which may explain why no one anti-viral drug works against all of them [Medical News Today]. By mapping a family tree of the common cold virus, or human rhinovirus, the researchers say they can identify the similarities and differences among all the strains.
That family tree shows that some regions of the rhinovirus genome are changing all the time but that others never change. The ... unchanging regions ... are therefore ideal targets for drugs because, in principle, any of the 99 strains would succumb to the same drug [
The New York Times]. The study also ...
