Ebola Genome Browser Now Online to Help Scientists’ Respond to Crisis

A US genomics institute has just released a new Ebola genome browser to help international researchers develop a vaccine and antiserum to help stop the spread of the Ebolavirus.

The investigators led by University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) Genomics Institute (USA) released the new browser on September 30, 2014. Researcher Dr. Jim Kent worked 24/7, talking with international partners to collect and present the most current data. The Ebola virus browser aligns five strains of Ebola with two strains of the related Marburgvirus. Within these strains, Kent and other members of the UC Santa Cruz Genome Browser team have aligned 148 individual viral genomes, including 102 from the current West Africa outbreak.

UC Santa Cruz has established the UCSC Ebola Genome Portal, with links to the new Ebola genome browser as well as links to all the relevant scientific literature on the virus.

“Ebola has been one of my biggest fears ever since I learned about it in my first microbiology class in 1997,” said Dr. Kent, who 14 years ago created the first working draft of the human genome. “We need a heroic worldwide effort to contain Ebola. Making an informatics resource like the genome browser for Ebola researchers is the least we could do.”

Scientists worldwide can access the open-source browser to compare genetic changes in the virus genome and areas where it remains the same. The browser allows scientists and researchers from drug companies, other universities, and governments to examine the virus and its genomic changes as they look for a solution to stop the epidemic.

The release of the new Ebola genome browser comes as the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC; Atlanta, GA, USA) confirmed the first case of Ebola in the United States. The Ebola browser was started right after a phone conversation between Kent and his sister, an epidemiologist at the CDC, who spoke of how she and her staff were consumed with Ebola research in the face of the escalating crisis. UC Santa Cruz Prof. Phil Berman, an HIV specialist, had also asked Dr. Kent for help with his efforts in developing a vaccine for Ebola.

Dr. Kent asked his supervisor, UC Santa Cruz bioinformatics researcher Dr. David Haussler, if he could sidetrack his team to Ebola research. Dr. Haussler replied with an enthusiastic affirmative, and they pulled together a team of UC Santa Cruz bioinformatics scientists that, within one week, was able to generate a fully functional Ebola genome browser. “The incredible speed with which this group was able to assemble all the genetic information about Ebola and make it available to the world shows what a great team Jim Kent has assembled,” Prof. Haussler said.

The investigators, in June 2000, released the first working draft of the human genome sequence on the web. Dr. Kent developed the UCSC Genome Browser two months later, which has become a vital resource to biomedical science.

In a similar organizing of forces in the face of a worldwide threat 11 years ago, UC Santa Cruz researchers created a Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus browser.

Related Links:
University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) Genomics Institute
UCSC Ebola Genome Portal