Two survivors of a 2014 Ebola outbreak in Nigeria visited Vanderbilt University Medical Center last week to share their experiences and participate in a study aimed at finding ways to treat the often-fatal infection.

Three Nigerian physicians who survived Ebola virus disease in July 2014 after coming in direct contact with an Ebola-infected patient will speak at Vanderbilt University Medical Center next Wednesday, Sept. 16.

Vanderbilt investigators have discovered how human antibodies induced during testing of an experimental “bird flu” vaccine kill the virus.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University and the National University of Singapore have determined the structure of a human monoclonal antibody which, in an animal model, strongly neutralizes a type of the potentially lethal dengue virus.

In late 2013 the Caribbean had its first case of the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus. Today there have been almost 1.2 million cases in 44 countries or territories, including 177 cases in 31 U.S. States.

With the help of a computer program called “Rosetta,” researchers at Vanderbilt University have “redesigned” an antibody that has increased potency and can neutralize more strains of the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) than can any known natural antibody.

Vanderbilt University researchers have received a five-year, $9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to design more effective flu vaccines and novel antibody therapies.