Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

The 'BLASTing Flu Viruses' project gave me an idea on what I can do for a science fair. I would like to try to test for the most effective common cold killer and would a large enough dose completely get rid of the virus. Would it be possible to test this in a school lab setting? If so how would I go about doing it?

Hi livibre,

Welcome to Science Buddies! I'm glad that one of the project ideas has helped you to focus your interests.

Understand that the 'BLASTing Flu Viruses' project is entirely computer-based, and does not work with the actual viruses. I think it would be very difficult to work with viruses, except maybe in a controlled laboratory setting (in a medical or university research lab). You could check out the web sites listed on the project Background page (https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... background) to see if you could do the project with cold viruses instead of the flu. I think that viruses causing the common cold tend to mutate faster than flu viruses do, which is why we have a yearly vaccine for the flu but still no effective vaccines for the common cold.

I hope this helps. Please post again (in this same thread) if you have more questions.

Heather