Could the Common Cold Conquer Cancer?

If there's any consolation to getting beaten, and beaten thoroughly, by the common cold virus, perhaps it may rest in current medical research that aims to direct its formidable biochemical mojo against a more formidable foe: cancer.

Science Daily reports that cancer researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif. have discovered that the virus that commonly leads to upper respiratory infection, and a full-blown cold calls upon a remarkable bag of tricks to suppress the body's natural disease-fighters that mostly lie dormant in our systems until needed. The cold, like cancer, can only take root and flourish by somehow getting around the p53 gene. Deemed "the guardian of the genome," p53 is responsible for keeping vigilant watch for infections and mutations to target and keep in check.

The Salk Institute team uncovered one particular protein that rides along with the cold-causing adenovirus that is responsible for taking the protective p53 out of commission. But by removing this protein from the adenovirus, the researchers think that they may have found a delivery device for treatment that will replicate within the system while leaving the disease-fighting gene undamaged.

The findings are currently published in the journal Nature. Future follow-up research is certainly expected with these findings that shed light on the mechanisms responsible for how p53 is inactivated as well as for how to outsmart that biochemical process.

Photo by trumanlo via Flickr.