Mary K. Estes

New Capabilities

Corresponding author on breakthrough study

For nearly six decades, human norovirus has defied laboratory cultivation—making it impossible to develop effective vaccines against a pathogen that sickens 700 million people annually. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have now broken that barrier. By blocking chemokine signaling with a drug called TAK-779, the team achieved 10 to 15 consecutive rounds of viral replication in lab-grown human intestinal tissue, enabling production of stable virus stocks for the first time.

Updated Feb 5