Asthma

Many people with asthma find that viral infections are a trigger for asthma attacks and estimates suggest 85% of childhood and 60% of adult exacerbations are triggered this way. The most frequent trigger-viruses are the common cold viruses which invade and hijack the infected person’s cell machinery to replicate and survive.

Cells can usually detect that they have been invaded and turn on an antiviral defence mechanism; however, the cells of asthmatics do not mount a very effective anti-viral response. There is a real need for better medication to control asthma attacks caused by viral infection and a new strategy might be to target the infected person’s cells rather than the virus, as the virus becomes easily resistant to drugs that directly target it.

Dr Aurelie Mousnier from Queen’s University Belfast was awarded a Medical Research Foundation-Asthma UK fellowship to determine the human proteins essential for common cold virus replication and survival.

It is hoped that this research will lay the foundations for new drug candidates that would stop common cold viruses hijacking cells and prevent its replication in humans. Such developments would be highly significant for the wellbeing of people with asthma.