Common Cold Unit

Template:Short description The Common Cold Unit (CCU) or Common Cold Research Unit (CCRU) was a unit of the British Medical Research Council which undertook laboratory and epidemiological research on the common cold between 1946 and 1989 and produced 1,006 papers. The Common cold Unit studied etiology, epidemiology, prevention, and treatment of common colds. It was set up on the site of the Harvard Hospital, a former military hospital at Harnham Down near Salisbury in Wiltshire. Common colds account for a third of all acute respiratory infections and the economic costs are substantial in terms of sick leave.

Thirty volunteers were required every fortnight during trial periods. The unit advertised in newspapers and magazines for volunteers, who were paid a small amount. A stay at the unit was presented in these advertisements as an unusual holiday opportunity. The volunteers were infected with preparations of cold viruses and typically stayed for ten days. They were housed in small groups of two or three, with each group strictly isolated from the others during the course of the stay. Volunteers were allowed to go out for walks in the countryside south of Salisbury, but residential areas were out of bounds.

Human coronaviruses, which are responsible for about 10% of common colds, were first isolated from volunteers at the unit in 1965. The CCU continually recruited volunteers for research into the common cold until its closure in 1990. The final director was David Tyrrell, whose autobiography describes his work at the CCU from 1957.

The CCU was sometimes confused with the Microbiological Research Establishment at nearby Porton Down, a military unit with which it occasionally collaborated but was not officially connected.

History

Our current understanding of colds began in 1914 when Dr. Kruse showed that nasal secretions from people with colds could be filtrated to make them free from bacteria and that inoculation of those filtrated washes into the nose of recipients caused the same illness. Christopher Andrewes and David Tyrrell refined these experiments at Harvard Hospital in Salisbury, England. Around 1946 this hospital became the Common Cold Unit of the Medical Research Council. The Common Cold Research Unit was set up by the Medical Research Council after Dr. Andrewes promoted the idea of researches on volunteers and persuaded authorities to set up the research station.

Discoveries

The first coronavirus (B814) was found in washes from a boy with typical common cold symptoms in 1960 during the study led by virologist David Tyrrell at the Common Cold Unit. After washes were inoculated to volunteers and tested for known viruses none was found. Publication about first human coronavirus was published in The BMJ in 1965. Later virologist June Almeida imaged virus for the first time and group of eight virologists including June Almeida named it coronavirus in their publication in 1968.

Results

During the CCU's existence, thousands of volunteers participated in research in which they were inoculated with common cold viruses or were in a control group, but no cure for the common cold was found. Some compounds were active against rhinoviruses in vitro but did not demonstrate clinical efficiency. Interferons alpha and beta administered intranasally before infection effectively prevented infection with rhinoviruses, coronaviruses, influenza viruses, and respiratory syncytial virus, but they were not as effective during treatment and had local side effects so they have not been used in routine practice against these viruses. Despite these dead ends, the findings made by the CCU improved the understanding of respiratory viruses, their lifecycles, and possible vaccines.

External links

• History of the Common Cold Unit - a British Library oral history project