During the past year, the laboratory focused on Ebola glycoprotein structural biology studies using antibodies to form a Fab:glycoprotein complex, which will generate a more stable protein and give an increased probability of generating crystals from the conditions that are screened. There are also efforts directed to increasing the chances of crystallization by cleaving the glycoprotein with a protease enzyme that is critical for Ebola virus entry. The resulting crystal structure will be directly relevant to the intermediate virus entry fusion step and provide an excellent target for therapeutic designs.
