Finding a real cold sore cure: it is one of the pharmaceutical industry's holy grails and for much of human history has seemed an impossibility.
But now, thanks to work by scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, it may be an impending reality.
News of the research, which was published in the journal JCI Insight, says that by using DNA-interfering enzymes called targeted endonucleases, it may be possible to disable the herpes simplex virus when it is at its latent stage.
And although the research has so far only been carried out on mice, it is thought that it could be the first stage in achieving a cold sore cure, which would be welcome news the more than 3.7 billion people under the age of 50 – 67% of the population – who, according to the World Health Organisation, are infected with the herpes simplex virus.
The study, claims its lead author, Dr. Keith Jerome, "lays out the pathway toward a potential cure for human herpes virus infections" by using DNA-cutting to disable the virus's ability to replicate.
However, the technique is yet to be tested on humans and it is thought it could be several years before it reaches this research stage, although the research team admit that this is the goal. "We can take these targeted endonucleases, we can introduce them into a mouse that has a latent herpes infection, we can get them to where the virus lies dormant and we can successfully attack that virus in its dormant state," said Dr. Jerome. "The process can work."
A cold sore cure would not simply be about improving the sense of wellbeing of those who suffer from strains of HSV; the virus can also be deadly, particularly among new-born children, who contract it without having developed any immunity.
