John Misasi

TL;DR: The identification of a novel benzylpiperazine adamantane diamide-derived compound that inhibits EboV infection is reported and it is found that NPC1 is essential for infection, that it binds to the virus glycoprotein (GP), and that antiviral compounds interfere with GP binding to NPC1.

TL;DR: Using selective inhibitors and knockout-derived cell lines, it is shown that the ebolaviruses Zaire and Cote d'Ivoire are strongly dependent on cathepsin B, while the e bolts Sudan and Reston and Marburg virus are not.

TL;DR: Surprisingly, several Fc-tagged Δ-peptides, which are small C-terminal cleavage products of sGP secreted by ebolavirus-infected cells, inhibited entry of retroviruses pseudotyped with Marburg virus GP1,2, as well as Marburgirus and Ebola virus infection in a dose-dependent manner and at low molarity despite absence of sequence similarity to filovirus RBRs.

TL;DR: These studies establish NPC1 as a promising target for anti-viral therapy and identify it as a host protein that binds the EboV glycoprotein and is essential for infection.

TL;DR: In this paper, human monoclonal antibodies that specifically bind Ebola virus glycoprotein with nanomolar affinity are described, which can be used to diagnose and treat Ebola virus infection or Ebola virus disease in a subject.