Stanford expands Ebola study to include new method of identifying pockets of viral persistence

A study conducted by Stanford University under contract with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been expanded to include new technologies capable of identifying viral reservoirs for both Ebola and Zika infections.

The study is part of a larger international effort to research how Ebola affects survivors and how to treat any chronic health problems better.

“Many of the recent epidemic’s 16,000+ Ebola survivors suffer from chronic, long-term health problems including headaches, joint pain, and eye problems caused by Ebola,” the report said. “Scientists do not yet fully understand what causes these after-effects.”

The original contract, awarded to Stanford in 2016 as part of the Medical Countermeasures Initiative (MCMi), was expanded to include Zika virus infection research in 2017. They now hope to use multiplexed ion beam imaging (MIBI) to chronicle those places where viruses grow and persist in the human body, which they hope will lead to further analytical technologies down the line. With the MIBI addition, scientists specifically hope to gain insight into congenital defects associated with maternal Zika infection and animal models of Zika infection.

Stanford has also been tapped to explore the use of Quantum Barcoding — an experimental technology that can rapidly measure numerous targets within the body, including RNA, DNA, and proteins. They hope to use this to enhance mass cytometry and water-in-droplet based techniques for analyzing single cells in labs and field stations. The project will last for two years.

Using samples from Guinea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Liberia, Stanford will combine results from testing to model and find potential causes of chronic after-effects.