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Absolutely everyone will catch a cold at some point in their lives– that’s why its’ called the common cold. For most people you just get ill for a few days and, before you know it, you’re healthy again. In people that suffer from asthma they tend to catch colds more often than others, they end up feeling worse and for longer periods of time. My PhD is aiming to figure out why this is the case.

Colds are caused by Rhinoviruses– a family of small viruses that are spread via the air and when you breathe them in, they will make some of the cells in your nose and lungs their homes by infecting them. During the infection, the virus takes advantage of all your normal cell processes to make lots and lots more copies of themselves with the aim to spread to even more of your airway cells before being released back into the air when you cough/sneeze them out.

Obviously your cells don’t want to be used as a breeding ground for the cold– which is why they have loads of defense mechanisms to stop the viruses from infecting them or, if they do get infected, to get rid of the viruses as quickly as possible.

To stop the cells getting infected they have something known as the physical barrier. One part of the physical barrier is all the snot (mucous) that lies on top of the cells as it’s super sticky and traps all the viruses so you can cough them up or swallow them (as your stomach acid kills the Rhinovirus).

Though the cells don’t want to get infected, sometimes they don’t get what they want (like us!) and end up getting infected by Rhinovirus. When the virus enters the cell, there are a number of sensors that activate a signalling cascade which acts a bit like a game of Chinese Whispers– telling the nucleus of the cell (the ‘brain’ of the cell) that it’s infected.

The cell will then start altering its’ behavior to stop the virus from being able to replicate in there. It will send out danger signals called cytokines and chemokines which get detected by immune cells and causes them to come to the cells to help clear up the infections. They also release these really important chemicals that I study called the Interferons.

Interferons are danger signals to the cells next-door to warn them that there’s an infection around and makes them start protecting themselves even more to stop the cold from both getting in and also to stop it from replicating if it does get in. We know that people with asthma have less Interferons released when they get infected with Rhinovirus– so we’re trying to find out if the neighbouring, uninfected cells don’t protect themselves as well as in healthy people!