August 05, 2025
Ebola outbreaks are rare, but when they occur the disease is often deadly and treatment options remain limited. Instead of attacking the virus directly, one promising strategy is to block the human proteins the virus depends on to survive and spread. The challenge has been identifying those proteins, especially for dangerous pathogens like Ebola that require the highest levels of biosafety containment.
Researchers at the Broad Institute and Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) have now taken a major step forward. Using a technique called optical pooled screening (OPS), developed at the Broad, the team was able to study how shutting down different human genes affects Ebola’s ability to replicate. The approach allowed them to analyze about 40 million CRISPR-edited cells in a single experiment.
By combining OPS with machine learning to analyze cell images, the scientists pinpointed several human proteins that play key roles in different stages of Ebola infection. When these proteins were suppressed, the virus struggled to replicate effectively.
The findings could open the door to new kinds of treatments. Instead of targeting the virus itself—an approach that often struggles against viral mutations—future therapies might focus on the host proteins Ebola relies on, potentially reducing disease severity in infected patients.
The researchers say the method could also be applied to other pathogens, offering a powerful way to discover drug targets for some of the world’s most difficult-to-treat infectious diseases.