CDC made a synthetic Ebola virus to test treatments. It worked

FLUORESCENT MICROSCOPE IMAGE SHOWING AN EBOLA STRAIN GROWING IN CELLS IN A CDC LAB. GREEN CELLS ARE THOSE INFECTED WITH EBOLA AND RED ARE UNINFECTED CELLS. (LANCET INFECTIOUS DISEASES)

Two treatments being developed for Ebola seem effective against the strain currently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to new research. This outbreak — the second largest in history — has resulted in more than 2,400 cases of the disease, and more than 1,600 deaths. What’s interesting is that scientists tested these drugs against a reverse-engineered synthetic version of virus. Why? Because there are no available samples of the natural strain, known as the Ituri strain, although the reasons for this are unclear. “They did a great job here in a short period of time, but man, that takes a lot of resources and a lot of money and a lot of energy to make a cloned virus by reverse genetics,” Tom Geisbert, of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, told STAT’s Helen Branswell.