FILOVIR: just another website on Ebola and Marburg viruses

Among the most virulent pathogens ever known, filoviruses – Ebola and Marburg viruses – cause severe hemorrhagic fever in humans and non humans primates. Confined to remote tropical areas of Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia, where they hide into elusive natural reservoir species of the rain forest, filoviruses occasionally emerge in isolated but deadly human outbreaks with mortality rates up to 90%. There are not licensed vaccines neither antivirals to counter filoviruses, and also they have a proven potential for misuse as biological weapons.

So far, no other pathogens like filoviruses have been so fascinating for the general public. In fact, since their discovery, which occurred around 40 years ago, Ebola and Marburg viruses have embodied the ancestral myth of the incoming plague and fueled the collective imagination with fears for a doomsday infectious disease which eventually “liquefies” its victims.

The creation of this website originated from the author’s will and personal need to collect the rigorous and scientific data that were widely dispersed in the world wide web, separating them from the exaggeration and mystification of pseudoscientific popular literature, and gathering them into the unique place that this web site aims to be.

Basically, FILOVIR is conceived as a mono-thematic environment focused on filovirus research. It mainly consists of public third-party information made available with the use of the iframe in its pages. The final result is a virtual place where all people interested in this topic can find scientifically rigorous and updated information all-together at their own fingertips.

Few words about me

I am a biologist with a background in biochemistry and virology. I took my graduation in Biological Sciences at the University of Cagliari in Sardinia, Italy, and a PhD in “Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases” at the Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Rome, Tor Vergata.

My research interest mainly lies in the biology of filoviruses (Ebolaviruses and Marburgviruses) and highly pathogenic influenza viruses, with an emphasis on the biochemistry and structural biology of those viral proteins that, in the life cycle of these pathogens, are involved in the replication, transcription and innate immune evasion processes.

The list of publications describing what has been my career path until now can be found here, while a personal webpage of mine is available at this address on LinkedIn. You can also find my personal details at the page “contacts” of this website.

I hope you will appreciate my efforts in creating and maintaining FILOVIR as a source of accurate and updated scientific information about filoviruses, and I really wish you enjoy navigation on these pages. Any suggestion, comment or question is welcome and, please, fell free to contact me for it.

Luca Zinzula.