New UTMB Ebola vaccine passes crucial test

Source: Houston Chronicle

An Ebola vaccine being developed in part by researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston passed a key test showing a single dose could protect monkeys against the strain of the lethal virus responsible for the current outbreak in Africa.

The results, published in this week's edition of the scientific journal Nature, clear the way for human testing to begin early this summer. But researchers are worried that with the Ebola outbreak rapidly slowing in Africa, they may not have enough subjects to fully test the vaccine this year.

The new vaccine is the first to be tested against the Makona strain of the virus that emerged early in 2014 and has killed nearly 10,000 people. Because of the difficulties in getting Ebola samples out of Africa, all other vaccines and treatments have been tested against the Mayinga strain of the virus, isolated from a 1976 Ebola outbreak in Zaire. Although the strains are 97 percent identical, even a small change in the genetic makeup of the virus could affect how well the vaccine works.

"While we don't think based on sequencing that it would be a problem," said Dr. Thomas Geisbert, a UTMB professor of microbiology and immunology who developed the vaccine, "you don't know. You can't prove it until you do the study." Profectus BioSciences partnered with UTMB on the project.

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