Recent News

Smallpox killed upwards of 500 million people in the 20th century before the virus was eradicated from the earth by large-scale vaccination campaigns. Close relatives in the poxvirus family, including cowpox and monkeypox, are less virulent in humans. But that doesn’t mean smallpox will never return, or that poxvirus infections will not become a greater concern as the number of immunocompromised individuals treated for disorders such as cancer continues to grow.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the major cause of life-threatening viral pneumonia in infants worldwide, yet despite repeated efforts, scientists have been unable to develop an effective vaccine against it. Now a team of scientists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), with colleagues in California and Pennsylvania, believe they know why the virus has been so difficult to neutralize.

Using an antibody generated at Vanderbilt University Medical Center that neutralizes the Ebola virus, researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, have determined the structure of a “decoy” protein that may enable the virus to evade detection by the immune system. Their findings, published Aug 8 in Nature Microbiology, should aid the design of effective vaccines and antibody treatments against Ebola, which has a 50 percent mortality rate.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – Two major announcements came Tuesday regarding therapidly-spreading Zika virus in the Americas. The Centers for Disease control announced it is at its highest level of activation, and President Barack Obama will ask Congress for nearly $2 billion to prevent it’s spread. There have been 35 reported cases of Zika in the United States, all of them associated with travel to other countries, in Hawaii, California, Minnesota, Texas, Illinois, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Washington DC, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Researchers at Vanderbilt University's Vaccine Center just received antibodies from Zika Virus survivors.  On Thursday the World Health Organization announced that there are 31 confirmed cases in the United States.  Health officials believe the virus is transmitted through mosquitos and leads to severe head deformities in newborn babies. Dr. James Crowe said, “Last year in Brazil a major outbreak started and we’ve seen thousands of cases now.”

Highlights •Natural Ebolavirus infection induced B cells encoding cross-reactive antibodies •Some cross-reactive human antibodies neutralized multiple Ebolavirus species •A large proportion of BDBV-neutralizing antibodies bound to the glycan cap •Glycan cap-specific antibodies exhibited very potent neutralizing activity Summary

From blood samples of survivors of a 2007 Ebola outbreak in Uganda, researchers have isolated antibodies that are protective and can neutralize two other species of Ebolavirus, including ­­Zaire ebolavirus—the one responsible for the massive 2014 outbreak in West Africa. The binding specificities of these human monoclonal antibodies and their activity in animal models of Ebolavirus appeared today (January 21) in Cell.

There may be a "silver bullet" for Ebola, a family of hemorrhagic viruses, one of which has killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa in the past two years. Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (UTMB) reported today in the journal Cell that they have isolated human monoclonal antibodies from Ebola survivors which can neutralize multiple species of the virus.