Gaya Amarasinghe, the Alumni Endowed Professor of pathology and immunology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, received a five-year $16.8 million grant renewal from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Other Washington University principal investigators on the grant include Daisy Leung, an associate professor of medicine; Kathleen Sheehan, a professor of pathology and immunology; Xiaoxia Cui, an associate professor of genetics; and Michael Gross, a professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences.
The project, initially funded in 2016, continues to explore how the Ebola and Marburg viruses interact with human and animal cells. Building on their initial work, the team aims to define factors influencing viral entry into humans and animals, replication, immune evasion and spreading; to characterize the many interactions occurring between the virus and the host's biological systems; and to identify drug targets as potential therapeutics for the treatment of these deadly viruses.
