REUTERS by Aharon Begley                                                                    Aug. 22, 2015
NEW YORK --An experimental Ebola drug from Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp cured all three monkeys intentionally infected with the virus, scientists reported on Wednesday, the first such success against the strain of Ebola in West Africa's 2014-2015 outbreak.

Although other experimental treatments appeared to help Ebola patients last year, especially in the United States, those one-time uses cannot prove efficacy against the "Makona" strain, since patients' recovery might be due to other causes. Similarly, drugs, including Mapp Biopharmaceutical's ZMapp, cured monkeys in lab experiments, but in a strain of Ebola different from that responsible for the current outbreak, the worst ever recorded.

"We can't say for certain that an experimental drug that works against one strain will work in another, even if they're almost identical genetically," said Thomas Geisbert of the University of Texas Medical Branch, senior author of the study published in the journal Nature.

In the experiment, six rhesus monkeys were infected with huge doses of the Makona strain. Three days later, three received an infusion of the Tekmira product, a cocktail of "small-interfering RNAs" (siRNAs) encapsulated in a fat droplet called a lipid nanoparticle. The siRNAs bind to two of the virus's seven genes, silencing them and thereby preventing the virus from replicating.

All three treated monkeys survived despite fevers and enormous blood levels of virus. Three untreated monkeys became so ill they were euthanized within nine days.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/22/health-ebola-tekmira-idUSL1N0XH0Z720150422
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Lipid nanoparticle siRNA treatment of Ebola-virus-Makona-infected nonhuman primates

NATURE MAGAZINE           April 22, 2015

Link to Nature Magazine article.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14442.html