NSF Award
1513330
Current methods for determining if a person has been infected with the Ebola virus are based on searching in a sample of the patient's blood for pieces of the virus, for example viral proteins or nucleic acids. For these methods to work well, there needs to be a lot of virus present, which occurs only late in an infection, or else sensitive equipment and sophisticated procedures are needed. Such procedures and equipment are not readily available in the places most severely affected by the current Ebola outbreak. In the work proposed here, the investigators plan on examining how the human body responds to the Ebola virus. This should enable the identification of a unique pattern of response, based on the proteins and nucleic acids that the human body produces very early in an Ebola infection and that are not produced during other diseases. This work should enable the development of new diagnostic assays for Ebola that can detect the disease early in the infection. Early detection methods will result in earlier treatment, and better chances to limit the spread of this disease.<br/><br/>Technical: This NSF Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project will support a systems biology approach to identifying early biomarkers of Ebola virus infection. Current strategies for definitive determination of Ebola virus infection are based on the ability to detect and/or amplify Ebola virus nucleic acids or the ability to detect Ebola virus capsid glycoproteins in blood or body fluid. Both methods of detection have limitations especially when deployed in resource poor environments such as those associated with the current Ebola outbreaks in West Africa. The work proposed here will use a systems biology approach to examine available data on the human response to Ebola virus infection, focusing specifically on early gene and protein expression. Unique patterns of gene and protein expression from the host early in the Ebola disease could be the basis for the development of novel point of care diagnostics for early Ebola infection. The PIs hypothesize that they will be able to identify patterns of host protein and gene expression that occur early after Ebola virus infection, and that are distinct from patterns of protein and gene expression associated with other diseases. Detection of this set of mRNAs or proteins would then be the basis of a novel multiplex assay for point of care diagnosis of the disease.
