Check out a highlight of our work on pan-ebolavirus neutralizing antibodies in the NIH Research Matters newsletter.
“Since it’s impossible to predict which of these agents will cause the next epidemic, it would be ideal to develop a single therapy that could treat or prevent infection caused by any known ebolavirus,” - Zach Bornholdt, PhD
Read about how our NIAID-funded study could lead to broad, versatile treatments for many different Ebolaviruses.
Researchers funded in part by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have studied the blood of an Ebola survivor, searching for human antibodies that might effectively treat not only people infected with Ebola virus, but those infected with related viruses as well. Now the researchers have identified two such antibodies that hold promise as Ebola treatments.
A research preview by Seiya Yamayoshi and Yoshihiro Kawaoka in Cell, describing two of our collaborative stories published in the May 18, 2017 issue of the journal.
Read here and here about how our work helps expand the understanding of the key conserved vulnerability sites across divergent viral glycoproteins and inform design of next generation immunotherapy.
Commentary in Nature highlights the power of cross-institutional collaborations and lessons learned by the team as they make headway on finding better treatments for Ebola virus infection. The Chandran Lab is an integral part of the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Immunotherapeutic Consortium, contributing key functional assays that characterize neutralization activity of monoclonal antibodies and help predict their therapeutic potential.
In our new paper in Science, we describe a new therapeutic strategy to target a hidden Achilles’ heel shared by all known types of Ebola virus. This strategy relies on our development of unique bispecific antibodies that like the mythical "Trojan horse," trick Ebola into carrying the means of its own destruction into host cells. See the press release here and a perspective on our work published in Science here.
Led by Anna Wec in the lab (Team).
A perspective by M.J. Aman in mBio profiles our work to image how Ebola virus fuses and escapes into host cells in real time. Read our paper here.
Like a Trojan horse, Ebola virus sneaks into a human cell by hiding out inside lysosomes. In order to escape from the lysosome, the virus must then fuse its membrane with the membrane of the lysosome. Live imaging captures this moment of fusion in brilliant color. Images by Chandran Lab postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Jennifer Spence.
In episode 5 of the weekly podcast, "This Week in Evolution," Kartik Chandran and Sara Sawyer join hosts Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello to talk about how the filovirus receptor NPC1 regulates ebolavirus susceptibility in bats.
Read the paper here and listen below.
The American Society of Microbiology (ASM) profiles our work to image how Ebola virus fuses and escapes into host cells in real time. Read our paper here.
Our study in eLife reveals an evolutionary arms race between Ebola virus and bats, waged over many millions of years. Read the press release and our blog post.
The Scientist reports on our paper in mBio describing the highly cholesterol-dependent hantavirus cell entry mechanism.
This 3D animation shows how Ebola virus exploits a naturally occurring protein in our cells called NPC1 to cause infection and spread in the body. Narrated by Kartik.
ScienceDaily.com discusses our mBio paper, which showed that NPC1 is indispensable for Ebola virus infection, replication, and disease in a mouse model.
Fight NPC, an initiative dedicated to advocacy and support for Niemann-Pick type C patients and families and NPC research, features our work on the Ebola-NPC1 link. Fight NPC supports research in the Chandran Lab that aims to better understanding this connection.
Kartik explains the novel strategies he and his colleagues are using to develop treatments for Ebola virus infections. Watch 3D animations showing how Ebola enters a cell and delivers its payload in order to replicate and spread throughout the body.
The Ebola epidemic in west Africa has highlighted the threat of emerging infectious diseases to public health. In this Nature.com webcast (registration required), Kartik outlines the importance of basic molecular research to understand how Ebola enters human cells, and why such research has been key to developing drugs and vaccines. Dr. Simon Hay (University of Oxford) also explains how mapping and modeling can help identify where are the places where Ebola and other emerging diseases risk jumping from animals to people. Watch the video (Kartik's talk only, 21 minutes).
Episode 314 of Dr. Vincent Racaniello's world-famous virology blog, This Week in Virology (TWiV), features Kartik and two other Einstein virologists, Margaret Kielian and Ganjam Kalpana. Filmed before a live audience in Einstein's Price Center Auditorium. Watch the video (1 hour, 26 mins).
In this C&EN Magazine (Chemical and Engineering News) cover story, Kartik and other Ebola researchers and clinicians discuss efforts to decipher the inner workings of Ebola virus, current emergency drug candidates, and the development of next-generation anti-Ebola drugs.
What prompted Kartik to study the entry mechanism of Ebola virus? Read this Science Careers article to find out more about why and how Kartik, Esther Ndungo, a graduate student in his lab, and several other researchers chose to investigate Ebola virus.
