BU’s Infectious Disease Lab Begins Ebola Research
Original article from WBUR by Art Jahnke August 20, 2018
Eight months after receiving final approval from the Boston Public Health Commission to conduct research at Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4), Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) has begun work with its first Level-4 pathogen, the Ebola virus.
“This is clearly an important step for the NEIDL,” says Ronald Corley, NEIDL director and a BU School of Medicine professor of microbiology. “This will permit us to fulfill our mission of studying emerging pathogens and developing diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines for these pathogens, even those that require BSL-4 containment. It has taken a very long time to get to this point, but the time that has passed has not dampened our enthusiasm — and excitement — to be able to start BSL-4 work.”
NEIDL microbiologist Elke Mühlberger says the lab’s first Level 4 projects will examine how the Ebola virus damages cells in the liver, and why it triggers such a powerful inflammatory response. Answers to those questions, she says, could speed the development of a therapy for Ebola virus disease, which sickened tens of thousands of people and led to more than 11,000 deaths in West Africa in a 2014–2016 outbreak, and sickened 59 people and killed 29 in an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo this past May. The country’s health ministry reported a new outbreak Aug. 1, which has killed at least 20 people.