HHMI on:A supportive mentor and a Gilliam fellow find a new
drug target against a virus that strikes hardest in poor, rural regions.
Working with Harvard virologists Hyeryun Choe and Michael Farzan, Abraham had isolated the human cell surface receptor that an obscure but deadly South American virus, called Machupo virus, latches onto during infection. Nature published the paper in 2007.
While planning his next step and reading up on the molecule, called transferrin receptor 1, Abraham discovered that his old mentor had a history with it too: (Stephen) Harrison and co-workers had determined the molecular structure of the transferrin receptor in the 1990s.