Scientists release Ebola sequencing data to global research community online

cjb250 — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 07:00:47 +0000

探花直播team of British scientists, funded by the Wellcome Trust, is using semi-conductor next-generation sequencing technology developed by Thermo Fisher Scientific to generate data in a lab facilitated by Public Health England and International Medical Corps. 探花直播genetic analysis is being made freely available to the scientific community.

Since the first reported case in March 2014, the Ebola outbreak has claimed nearly 11,000 lives in West African countries. Professor Ian Goodfellow, Head of Virology at the 探花直播 of Cambridge, travelled to Sierra Leone in December last year and then again in March this year to help set up a new diagnostics centre attached to an Ebola Treatment Centre in one of the country鈥檚 worst affected parts. He returned a third time, together with his postdoc Dr Armando Arias, to study the virus at a molecular level using the sequencing technology.

鈥淪equencing the genome of a virus can tell us a lot about how it spreads and changes as it passes from person to person. While this information is invaluable to researchers, the rapid sharing of data does not always occur,鈥� said Professor Paul Kellam at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, who is leading the team to map the genomic data captured by Professof Goodfellow and colleagues. 鈥淚t used to take months to process samples that had to be brought back to labs in the UK for analysis. Having sequencing capabilities on the ground helps generate data in a matter of days or at the longest weeks, which should have a profound impact on how the Ebola virus is researched and inevitably addressed on a global scale.鈥�

Rapid sequencing enables epidemiologists to decipher the source of individual strains, and helps eliminate the need to rely upon Ebola patients to tell them how and where they contracted the virus, as different strains can be tracked as they are transmitted from person to person.

鈥淥nly by understanding the Ebola virus and other pathogens, which cause so much suffering in countries like Sierra Leone, can we take meaningful steps to protect communities from future outbreaks,鈥� said Goodfellow. 鈥淢y hope is that this technology will be used by the next generation of Sierra Leonean scientists and researchers to help provide a sustainable research and surveillance system in the future.鈥�

探花直播next-generation sequencing system was installed at the laboratory adjacent to an Ebola Treatment Centre in Makeni, which was funded by the UK鈥檚 Department for International Development. In order to ensure a lasting benefit for the project beyond the current crisis, the next-generation sequencing system is expected to be installed at the 探花直播 of Makeni, where it will be used by local scientists to study Ebola, and other pathogens that affect the region.

鈥淲e鈥檝e learned many painful lessons from the Ebola outbreak, not least of which is that as a scientific community we must become less secretive with the data that is generated,鈥� added Dr Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust. 鈥� 探花直播collective expertise of the world鈥檚 infectious disease experts is more powerful than any single lab, and the best way of tapping into this is to enhance the capacity to generate the data in the countries affected, rather than having to fly samples out to other countries and then to make the data openly and safely available, as soon as possible.鈥�

Adapted from a press release from Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA

A team of scientists, part of the international effort to curb further spread of the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone, has released its first dataset of the virus鈥� genetic structure online. 探花直播dataset will allow the global scientific community to monitor the pathogen鈥檚 evolution in real-time and conduct research that can lead to more effective strategies against further outbreaks.

Only by understanding the Ebola virus and other pathogens, which cause so much suffering in countries like Sierra Leone, can we take meaningful steps to protect communities from future outbreaks

Ian Goodfellow

CDC Global

Ebola virus

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Scientists take step towards drug to treat norovirus stomach bug

cjb250 — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 12:00:30 +0000

Norovirus is the most common cause of gastroenteritis in the UK. For most people, infection causes an unpleasant but relatively short-lived case of vomiting and diarrhoea, but chronic infection can cause major health problems for people with compromised immune systems. In many cases, patients who have weaker immune systems suffer from norovirus infection for months to years, with some patients experiencing gastroenteritis for as many as eight years. Outbreaks can cause significant economic losses 鈥� in UK hospitals alone, the cost of treating outbreaks is estimated at over 拢100 million a year, and foodborne outbreaks in the US lead to economic losses of聽 around $2 billion per year.

探花直播virus is notoriously difficult to study because it will not grow efficiently in the laboratory, therefore scientists often use a mouse norovirus to identify drugs that can inhibit infection. It is one of a class of viruses known as RNA viruses, which have ribonucleic acid (RNA) as their genetic material. Most of the major viruses that have the potential to become epidemics are of this class. RNA viruses replicate and mutate rapidly, making them challenging to develop vaccines or immunity against.

In a study published today in the journal eLife and funded by the Wellcome Trust, a team of researchers led by Professor Ian Goodfellow has shown in mice with a long-term norovirus infection that the experimental drug favipiravir is effective at lowering levels of norovirus in the body, including in both tissue and faeces, which may help in reducing the severity of the disease and onward transmission.

Favipiravir is an experiment antiviral drug which is thought to be effective against a number of RNA viruses such as influenza, West Nile virus, yellow fever virus, and foot-and-mouth disease virus. It is currently also been tested as a potential drug to treat Ebola virus. 探花直播探花直播 of Cambridge team has shown that the drug works by causing the virus to self-destruct in a process known as 鈥榣ethal mutagenesis鈥�, which causes errors in the virus鈥檚 genetic information; because RNA viruses replicate and mutate rapidly, the errors take hold quickly, neutralising the virus and preventing further spread. This is one of the first demonstrations of lethal mutagenesis as a method of fighting viruses in their natural hosts and suggests that it may be possible to tackle other RNA viruses in the same way.

鈥淣orovirus is an unpleasant bug that spreads quickly,鈥� says Professor Goodfellow, a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow, who led the study. 鈥淢ost of us will have experienced it at some point and will know that the only option is to ride out an infection, drinking plenty of fluids. But some patients get infections that can last months or years, and this has a real impact on their quality of life. 探花直播ease with which infections spread, particularly in places such as hospitals, schools and cruise ships, and the potentially serious health problems norovirus can cause people with weakened immune systems means that we desperately need a way to treat infection.鈥�

Dr Armando Arias, first author, adds: 鈥淥ur work in mice is very promising and shows that favipiravir can make the virus mutate itself to death. It suggests that as well as treating infected individuals, the drug may also be useful in preventing infection during an outbreak. 探花直播next steps will be to test whether this drug is safe and effective at treating patients, too.鈥�

Reference
Arias, A et al. Favipiravir elicits antiviral mutagenesis during virus replication in vivo. eLife; 21 Sept 2014.

An experimental drug currently being trialled for influenza and Ebola viruses could have a new target: norovirus, often known as the winter vomiting virus. A team of researchers at the 探花直播 of Cambridge has shown that the drug, favipiravir, is effective at reducing 鈥� and in some cases eliminating 鈥� norovirus infection in mice.

Our work in mice is very promising and shows that the drug favipiravir can make the virus mutate itself to death

Armando Arias

NIAID

3D print of Norwalk virus, a type of norovirus

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探花直播 of Cambridge - Armando Arias

Scientists release Ebola sequencing data to global research community online

Scientists take step towards drug to treat norovirus stomach bug