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Scientists block Ebola infection in cell-culture experiments

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"GALVESTON, Texas — Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have discovered two biochemical pathways that the Ebola virus relies on to infect cells. Using substances that block the activation of those pathways, they’ve prevented Ebola infection in cell-culture experiments — potentially providing a critical early step in developing the first successful therapy for the deadly virus.

"The premise for this work is that the virus is essentially nothing without a cell," said Davey, lead author of a paper on the research appearing this month in the journal Drug Discovery Research. "It needs to rely on many cell proteins and factors for it to replicate. The idea is that if we can suppress the expression of those cell proteins for just a short time, we can then stop the disease in its tracks."

"With the real virus in the BSL4, we found that the PI3 kinase inhibitor dropped virus titers by 65 percent, and if we used drugs which block CAMK2 function, it was just killed — stopped dead," Davey said. "This is really, very, very interesting because this pathway has a lot of potential for future pharmaceutical exploitation."