Galveston County Daily News, April 8, 2009
UTMB's Thomas G. Ksiazek writes in this guest column how UTMB researchers helped a scientist in Germany who had accidently pricked a finger with the deadly ebola virus. "The medical branch's expertise, gained from outbreak investigations in Africa and experimentally in our BSL-4 labs, was a part of the solution. The director for biodefense at UTMB's center for biodefense and emerging infectious diseases, Dr. C. J. Peters, the director of UTMB's Robert E. Shope laboratory, Mike Holbrook, and I, as director of Galveston National Lab, were among the small group of scientists from around the world who were engaged in this case. Research saves lives. Even in laboratories of the highest biosafety levels with careful research practices, accidents can happen. The Hamburg incident may have occurred on foreign soil but local expertise helped select a course of treatment and, perhaps collectively with the world community, moved us further along the path toward a cure for one of the world's deadliest diseases."