Scientists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison have figured out how to disable one of the eight genes found in the Ebola virus to keep it from being able to reproduce. In doing so, they have created a sample of the virus that can be tested in nearly any environment without threat of an outbreak. Though the virus could infect a single cell in a person's body, it is unable to reproduce and spread throughout the body, making it essentially harmless, but extremely useful for testing purposes.
To allow them to perform controlled reproduction of the "sterile" virus, they have introduced the protein that the virus would use for reproduction into the kidney of a monkey, which allows the virus to only reproduce while contained in the kidney. As soon as the virus is removed from the presence of the protein, it can no longer reproduce.
"At present, research on live Ebola virus is confined to the very highest level of biosafety, known as Biosafety Level 4 (BSL 4). Because such laboratories are rare, small and very expensive, basic research that is the basis for any potential drugs or vaccines to thwart the virus has been limited to perhaps half a dozen labs worldwide. The system devised by Kawaoka and his colleagues could provide a way to greatly expand studies of the pathogen and speed the development of countermeasures." (Press release)
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