GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)

[RNsidersbuying]

By late 1998, Dr. Sullivan had produced a vaccine candidate that she and colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta tested in monkeys. On July 28, 1999, she received word via an email from the CDC that tests of blood serum samples from vaccinated test monkeys showed immune responses that, she says, “went through the roof.” She wrote “Yahoo!” in the margin of her lab notes, realizing they had broken new scientific ground.

The vaccine was tested in infected macaque monkeys in the most intensive protective environment known to man, called BSL-4 or Biosafety Level-4, at the CDC, and later by Army researchers at Ft. Detrick in Maryland. Unvaccinated monkeys became sick and died within about a week. The four vaccinated monkeys had no detectable virus-something science had never before accomplished.

“These findings demonstrate that it is possible to develop a preventive vaccine against Ebola virus infection in primates,” wrote Drs. Sullivan, Nabel and colleagues in a letter to the journal Nature in Nov. 2000.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/ebola-vaccine-push-ramps-up-1413762856