Kol HaKavod! (All The Respect!) Israeli Scientist Leads Search for Ebola Cure [BGU virologist Dr. Leslie Lobel], whose interest in Ebola was first piqued while he was at New York’s Columbia University before immigrating to Israel in 2002, has been traveling to East Africa five times a year for his research. He and his co-principal investigator Dr. Victoria Yavelsky are partnering with the US military and the Uganda Virus Research Institute to devise a way of conferring long-term immunity against the disease through the use of human monoclonal antibodies. The close collaboration with the US military on the study has been key, as the Ben-Gurion University scientists cannot work with the Ebola virus in Israel. There are very few high containment labs anywhere in the world, and there are none at Israeli universities. First of all, high containment labs are very expensive to operate. And second of all, there is the security issue here in the Middle East. Working with Ebola here is just asking for trouble, Lobel said. The team’s goal is to develop a passive vaccine composed of preformed components of the immune system, which would provide immediate protection against the virus. The Times of Israel: timesofisrael/israeli-scientist-leads-search-for-ebola-cure/
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 22:54:52 +0000
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