Cool:

Our immune system can also fight rhinovirus after they’ve invaded our cells. Once viruses have worked their way inside, their shells break open and they dump out internal proteins and genes. The cells then use these molecules to make new viruses.

It turns out that cells can grab some of these molecules and push them to their surface. It’s as if they’re pushing a home invasion alarm. Immune cells can learn to recognize these viral proteins. They instruct infected cells to kill themselves and slow down an infection.

McLean and his colleagues set out to build a new vaccine based on this alarm defense. They whipped up batches of internal proteins from rhinoviruses and injected them into mice. The scientists found that the immune system of the mice could learn to recognize the proteins. If they mixed rhinoviruses with mouse blood, immune cells aggressively attacked infected cells.

What’s especially exciting about this approach is that the proteins from one type of rhinovirus can trigger a response to other types as well. That’s because the internal proteins they’re targeting are pretty much the same from one type to another. It’s probably impossible for them to evolve into different shapes, because they’d stop doing their essential work.

Today I learned:

Colds take an enormous economic toll on families. Between sick days and parents staying home to care for their children, colds drain an estimated $25 billion a year from workplace productivity in the United States.

80 Reddit comments:

https://reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/59axwl/vaccine_with_a_cocktail_of_50_types_of_cold/