Colds researchers deleted the word "cure" from their lexicons in the early 1960s when they discovered that some 200 different viruses can cause colds-far too many to conquer with a vaccine, the conventional method of defeating an infectious disease. With the discovery of each new family of cold virus-rhinovirus, coronavirus, Coxsackie virus, adenovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, to name a few-researchers sank into a deeper funk. And as funding for common-cold research by the National Institutes of Health dwindled to its current level of $2 million per year, a mere 0.02 percent of its total budget, most researchers moved on to study influenza, herpes, AIDS, or other viral diseases.

But after years of low-profile research, biologists who remained dedicated to fighting the common cold believe they have homed in on a strategy both to stop cold viruses from replicating and to dampen the immune response that produces symptoms-together, the closest thing yet to a cure.