University of Texas Medica Branch scientists awarded $11.3M NIAID grant to study Ebola

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced Friday it has awarded researchers at the University of Texas Medica Branch (UTMB) at Galveston $11.3 million to study Ebola.

The multiyear grant will fund research into the immunopathogenesis of Ebola, specifically why cells infected with Ebola develop “Immune system paralysis,” which inhibits immune response, leads to hyper inflammation and allows the infection to spread, the university said.

Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, researchers at UTMB have not stopped studying Ebola as part of the global effort to develop countermeasures to the virus with an average case of as much as 50 percent, according to the World Health Organization fatality rate.

“There have been two Ebola outbreaks going on in Africa this year, and this disease remains one of the deadliest known to humans,” Co-Principal Investigator Alexander Bukreyev, of UTMB’s Department of Pathology, said. “With COVID-19, we have seen how easily an infectious disease can originate in one location and spread around the world. The same is true with more deadly viruses, as well, and for that reason, research on Ebola that will help us develop effective vaccines and therapies has never stopped at UTMB.”

The research will take place inside a Biosafety Level 4 (BSL4) laboratory at the Galveston National Laboratory, said Co-Principal Investigator Mariano Garcia-Blanco, chair of the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department. Built with specially designed air handling and waste systems, the BSL4 labs allow scientists to work safely in spacesuits connected to a hose to breathing air. The research will be conducted on human cell cultures and in nonhuman primates.

“There are very few places in the world where this type of medical research can take place, and while our focus will be on Ebola, this work will have important implications for other severe acute viral infections that share mechanisms with Ebola, such as Marburg virus, Lassa virus and SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19,” Garcia-Blanco said.

The five-year research project will also include developing models using ‘big data’ to predict infection outcomes and pathogenicity. Researchers hope the project will result in a comprehensive understanding of how Ebola infections take hold, developing new insight into effective prevention and treatment methods.

Other researchers on the project include Ricardo Rajsbaum, Ph.D., and Thomas Geisbert, Ph.D., from the Department of Microbiology & Immunology, and Andrew Routh, Ph.D., from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Additional collaborators include Ivan Marazzi, Ph.D., and Stuart Sealfon, MD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, and Dr. Matt Weirauch, Ph.D., of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.