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Hello hey fever causing you havoc is asthma proving to be an annoyance this week week we are talking allergies. What causes an

allergy? Can we reverse it? We speak to one specialist who's making great strides

in doing just that. Plus in the news a possible cure for the common cold and are longer legs really more attractive?

We'll be asking the scientist who's been finding out.

I'm Katie Hayler.

I'm Chris Smith and this is the Naked Scientists. The Naked Scientists podcast is powered

by UKfast.co.uk. First up, each of us suffers about three cold virus infections every single year.

They make us miserable, they spoil our holidays and they cost us time off work. And sadly there's no cure yet.

But that might be about to change thanks to scientists at Imperial College who began by trying to develop drugs to fight malaria,

but accidentally along the way stumbled instead on a method to block the growth of rhinoviruses,

which are the chief causes of colds.

Their new agent temporarily deactivates an

enzyme in human cells that these viruses use when they try to grow. Roberto Salari

helped to invent it. So we've been trying to find ways of knobbling or blocking the virus if you like.

But this is a very simple virus. It has a protein shell and it has genes inside that protein shell.

But like all viruses, it can only make more copies of itself inside our own cells.

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