Rare genetic disorder could hold clue to cure for Ebola

Supportive care
Experimental drugs (not 100% effective, Duncan died after receiving experimental drug)

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"Ebola virus entry requires the cholesterol transporter Niemann-Pick C1." In other words, a person without a functioning NPC1 gene appears to be incapable of catching the Ebola virus.

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That's a profound discovery. The article said it applies to Marburg and AIDS as well.

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"What we're trying to do is develop small molecule therapy that would incapacitate the gene temporarily, and then take them off the drug and everything goes back to normal," he said.

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"Small molecule therapy." Wow, the development of medical technology is blazing along at the same pace as other technologies.

I was thinking of the fact that people dont die from it after getting medical care

gonna be soooo pissed if they cure this before aidz.

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I was thinking of the fact that people dont die from it after getting medical care

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ZMAPP has been used on only five people, one of whom died. The priest in Spain died after taking it. Brincidofovir has been used on two people, one of whom died.
Here's a link for more info, No cure.

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I actually support Ebola. It's natures way of cleaning up a bit.

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Ebola is probably not going to be the depopulator a lot of us have expected for a long while now. While it certainly has a very high kill rate (the West African strain is reputedly averaging 70%) of those it infects, it spreads through bodily fluids.

This mode of spread is far less efficient than say, bird flu which can spread through the air. Avian flu is scarier than Ebola in that it spreads with lightening speed. H5N1, the current threat, could mutate to a human strain now and be on the other side of the earth tomorrow via jet travel.

The last Great Depopulator was the novel human strain of H1N1 avian flu in 1918. It killed, by some estimates, up to 100 million people. Extrapolating that number to today's population, we could expect to lose half a billion people to a new avian flu strain.

Even with the primitive transportation available in the early 20th century, H1N1 spread all around the globe in a mere three weeks.

On average, new avian flu strains pop up in humans two to three times per century. We are long overdue, some 96 years, for the next one.

Ara Parseghian and his foundation had/have been very helpful - funding much of the research that characterized the molecular basis for NPC disease.

I'm sure his family is hopeful that there will be even more interest now that there is a more "acute" need to understand NPC1's function.