Source: http://www.umassmed.edu/news/news-ar...cent-outbreak/
UMMS study suggests Ebola virus mutation caused recent outbreak
Discovery by Jeremy Luban and colleagues illuminates how virus was better able to infect human cells
By Jim Fessenden
UMass Medical School Communications
November 03, 2016
A study led by scientists at UMass Medical School demonstrates that an Ebola virus mutant dominated the 2013?16 epidemic by making the virus better able to infect human cells.
?This mutation is not just located in some random location of the viral genome,? said Jeremy Luban, MD, the David J. Freelander Professor in AIDS Research and professor of molecular medicine and biochemistry & molecular pharmacology. ?Amazingly, it?s located precisely at the tip of the molecule that the Ebola virus uses as a key to unlock and gain entry to human cells.?
The research, published Nov. 3 in the journal Cell, reports findings from a collaborative project involving the labs of Dr. Luban; Kristian Andersen, PhD, of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI); Pardis Sabeti, PhD, of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; and Andrew Rambaut, PhD, of the University of Edinburgh...
UMMS study suggests Ebola virus mutation caused recent outbreak
Discovery by Jeremy Luban and colleagues illuminates how virus was better able to infect human cells
By Jim Fessenden
UMass Medical School Communications
November 03, 2016
A study led by scientists at UMass Medical School demonstrates that an Ebola virus mutant dominated the 2013?16 epidemic by making the virus better able to infect human cells.
?This mutation is not just located in some random location of the viral genome,? said Jeremy Luban, MD, the David J. Freelander Professor in AIDS Research and professor of molecular medicine and biochemistry & molecular pharmacology. ?Amazingly, it?s located precisely at the tip of the molecule that the Ebola virus uses as a key to unlock and gain entry to human cells.?
The research, published Nov. 3 in the journal Cell, reports findings from a collaborative project involving the labs of Dr. Luban; Kristian Andersen, PhD, of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI); Pardis Sabeti, PhD, of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; and Andrew Rambaut, PhD, of the University of Edinburgh...