Why the same cold virus makes some people more miserable than others

Washington Post A new study shows the intricacies of the cold virus and how it interacts with nasal airway cells, revealing why some people are hit harder than others. When the common cold rips through a household, it can leave a wildly uneven path of symptoms. The same cold-causing rhinovirus that produces barely a sniffle in one person can cause a week of stuffy-nose suffering in the next and in others trigger coughing and trouble breathing that can send them to the hospital. To understand how these wintertime nuisances unfold, why they can be so variable and how to make them less miserable, researchers at Yale School of Medicine cultivated miniature models of nasal airways. Over four weeks, they grew nasal stem cells into organoids, tiny versions of the interface between our noses and the air — complete with cells that produce mucus or have attached hairlike structures called cilia that pulse in a wavelike rhythm to move mucus and debris.