page_title: Vaccine Research Center
section_title: Ebola
hierarchical_section_title: Vaccine Research Center / Projects / Ebola
caption_attribution_description: Dr. Nancy Sullivan has been the Chief of the Biodefense Research Section at the Vaccine Research Center in the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases since 2004. Her work has focused on creating vaccines against hemorrhagic fever viruses such as ebola and in understanding immunity to filoviruses.
context_page_description: The Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center, more commonly known as the Vaccine Research Center, is an Intramural Division of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one of the US National Institutes of Health. The mission of the VRC is "to conduct research that facilitates the development of effective vaccines for human disease." The primary focus of research is the development of vaccines for AIDS, but the VRC also is working to develop vaccines for Ebola and the Marburg virus, and therapeutic antibodies against SARS-CoV2.
context_section_description: In 2016 research efforts led by Dr. Nancy Sullivan at Vaccine Research Center and Dr. J. J. Muyembe-Tamfum from the from the Institut National de Recherche Biomedicale (INRB) in the Democratic Republic of Congo resulted in the discovery of a monoclonal antibody,  mAb114, from a survivor from the 1995 Kikwit outbreak of Ebola virus disease. mAb114 is a monoclonal antibody therapy that is being evaluated as a treatment for Ebola virus disease and has shown great success by lowering the mortality rate from 70% to about 34% in the 2018-2020 Kivu Ebola Virus Outbreak. In August 2019, Congolese health authorities, the World Health Organization, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health promoted the use of mAb114, alongside a similar Regeneron-produced treatment, over other treatments yielding higher mortality rates, after ending clinical trials during the outbreak.
caption: Dr. Nancy Sullivan played an instrumental role in developing a monoclonal antibody for Ebola.
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