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Experimental Vaccine used on the Two Ebola Patients with Apparent Success

This is a good story and shows how some military research makes it into the civilian world.

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-05/ebola-drug-made-from-tobacco-plant-saves-u-s-aid-workers.html

Comments

  • Hi John- yes, I saw that... keep your fingers crossed!

    OJ
  • @JohnChisum
    1. It is not a vaccine, it is a drug.
    2. It is really only a drug in the FDA definition sense, not as a lay person would think of it; rather, it is an antiviral monoclonal antibody (in this case, probably a collection of them) produced by biotechnology, that binds to Ebola virus proteins and subsequently neutralize live virus. Think of the treatment as antiviral immunotherapy.
    3. It is not an example of military research moving out into the public sphere, like a NASA invention. Military labs simply would not have these special capabilities. Most of this work is being done in the public/private research world, funded by money from the US Army.
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